Please Please the Bees by Gerald Kelley

Please Please the Bees by Gerald Kelley
Albert Whitman and Company

Rating: I'd like to give it a 6!

I have 51 books checked out from our local library right now. We brought about half of them to the Oregon Coast last weekend--the hardback library picture books were augmented by paperbacks from our own children's library in an unsuccessful attempt to make my giant library bag a little lighter. Of all those books, this one is my favorite right now.

Meet Benedict. He's a simple bear. A creature of habit. Every morning, he wakes up at the same time. He stretches and yawns, opens his door, and collects the three jars of honey the bees deliver each day.

To fuel his day, he has toast with honey and tea with extra honey. Then he sets off practicing violin, baking honey cake, knitting, and running errands.

Until one day when there are no jars of honey on his doorstep. Instead, he sees dozens of bees, flying and steadying signs: "ON STRIKE!" No more honey. Benedict is beside himself. He doesn't know what to do, but he knows his days are impossible without his honey.

A bee buzzes up to him: "We need to talk!"

Benedict: "Talk? Humph! I let you all live in my yard. All I ask is for a few jars of honey. You should be grateful. Not go on strike!"

Bee: "A few jars? Buddy, we deliver three jars of honey to you every day. Every month! Every year! Do the math, Einstein!"

Benedict even learned how to harvest honey. 

At that moment, a lightbulb in Benedict's fuzzy bear head lights up. And he gets it. And as the bee explains the poor working conditions, high demands, the number of queen bees that have quit, and how many miles and miles they have to fly to find enough flowers to make their honey, Benedict understands the problem even more. At first, he's not sure what to do, although he knows--he agrees with the bee--that change is necessary. Then Benedict does some research, a little shopping, and a LOT of work.

The result? A spruced-up hive and a new plan of action where Benedict does a lot of the work himself. The bees drop their "ON STRIKE!" signs and get back to work.

The bigger result? A children's book that is up there with the great and clever classic Click, Clack, Moo Cows That Type--both that book and this one apply a complex, usually-adult subject to a children's book in just the right way. Gerard Kelley created a book to put in the laps of children that inspires and teaches about the importance of taking care of the world's bees. But this book's illustrations go beyond Click, Clack, Moo...the illustrations of Please Please The Bees are sweet and gorgeous, clever and funny. They are downright perfect.

I only wish there was an author's note or resources on the back to show young readers what they can do to "please the bees!" But the Honeybee Conservancy has some ideas. Click HERE for them, right after you head to your local independent bookstore to buy this book.

E-I-E-I-O: How Old MacDonald Got His Farm (With a Little Help from Hen) by Judy Sierra

E-I-E-I-O: How Old MacDonald Got His Farm (With a Little Help from Hen) by Judy Sierra, illustrated by Matthew Myers

Rating: 4 stars

Now, just in time for Spring planting, we get the real scoop on Old MacDonald and that farm of his.

It turns out, all he had at the beginning was a house.  With a pretty big yard.  That needed a lot of mowing.  It needed so much mowing that that MacDonald guy decided to retire his mower and get a goat.  But the goat clearly had obedience issues: he ate the bushes instead.  MacDonald got smart and got a chicken.  Turns out, the chicken was top-notch and had a lot of good ideas about this yard of his.

She suggested to him that they tear up the grass.  No more mowing?  MacDonald was IN!  Then add lots of stuff to that muddy pit--trash, his own clothes, what he was eating...anything and everything goes in.  Even poop!  And finally, a warm worm family to make something of the mess.

"I love my yard / But mowing grass is mighty hard."

During this smelly process, illustrator Matthew Myers shows us protestors and complainers and haters (just to use slang as if I'm cooler than I am) in the background.  They complain about whatever he is doing: they hate how he doesn't keep his yard nicely mowed, they write picket signs as the yard turns into a brown mess, and they hold those signs even higher when the hen directs MacDonald to add horse manure and mix well.

You've probably seen what's coming: With all the ingredients already added, the worms create compost from this muddy, stinky pit.  Because the next thing he adds is seeds.  All sorts of seeds.  Myers gives us readers a fantastic over-and-under the ground illustration of carrots, beets, potatoes, onions as they use that soil to grow bigger and richer.  MacDonald has too much of a good thing (vegetables), so he opens a farmer's market to sell and share the fruits of his labor.

The end result: an urban farm!
Who knew Old MacDonald was a hipster?!

And those haters put down their picket signs and dig in to the good stuff.

I think this is a great book to get kids excited about gardening and get them thinking about composting. And even if you know you'll never compost OR garden, it's still a good read with wild, vibrant illustrations to go along with the story.  Judy Sierra has written some of my favorite rhyming books, especially Wild About Books.  (Click here for complete list of my reviews on her books.)  I completely look to her to teach me how to do it the right way, but this book has a few non-rhyming hiccups that keep it in the good, not great category.

But Kiefer sure doesn't care about that.  I've read it to him twice in one night.  For some reason he loves lawn mowers, so he loves this book regardless of the hiccups his critical mama sees!

On Meadowview Street by Henry Cole

On Meadowview Street by Henry Cole

Rating: 4 stars

There's this huge trend in children's book: to create lots of nonfiction books that parents and educators can use to teach while kids are turning pages themselves, or on their parents' laps.  I think it's a great trend; there are tons of incredible nonfiction books out there that do this well.

But.

You knew there'd be a but, right?

The books I'm talking about are often too wordy and too "teachy;" they are the type of book parents buy and give their kids or, like me, check them out from the library and just have them lying around in the hopes that facts will be learned through osmosis at the very least.  Books about the environment and living green definitely fall into this trap of trying a little TOO hard.

Sometimes, a simple tale of creating a simple garden can go a lot farther than a book about a woman who helped restore all the redwoods in California (or something like that).

Henry Cole does just that in On Meadowview Street.  Young Caroline moves in, and immediately starts looking for a meadow. Because shouldn't there be one on Meadowview Street?  There is not.  So she makes one.  She starts small, with just a little area of her yard, which she ropes off so her father doesn't mow that area.

The more Caroline and her family worked on their yard,
the more it changed.  It was now a home to many things.

But as flowers start to grow, the area gets larger.  And as more flowers bloom, she gets a tree for shade.  Then a bird comes, and she builds bird houses to put in the tree.  They need something to drink, so she and her family build a little pond.  And pretty soon, one step at a time, she creates a small wildlife preserve in her suburban neighborhood.  Of course, it wonderfully inspires others, and Caroline ends up inspiring many people to start small, in their own yard, to do their part.

It's a really great little go-green book for kids.


Small side note: I met Henry Cole last week.  He's the illustrator of over 100 books, and he's authored a fair number of them, too.  He was a neat, neat guy.  He grew up on a farm not far from where we live--in Purceville--so many of his books are inspired from these simple, rural roots.

Inch by Inch: The Garden Song by David Mallett

Inch by Inch: The Garden Song by David Mallett, illustrated by Ora Eitan

Rating: 5 stars

It's February.  My least favorite month of the year.  I'm just not a winter person.  As much as I try to appreciate what winter has to offer, I look out at our woods and see what is not there rather than appreciate what is there.  And it is so darn cold.  I try to keep a cheerful attitude, if just in front of my kids, because I don't like to hear anyone complain, including myself.  But when Lorelei started talking about how excited she was for Spring, I wondered if she had the winter-stinks gene, too.

When I saw this book in the library last week, I actually gasped with excitement.  The book is based on a song that I sang in my fourth grade class at Sacred Heart School in Savannah, Georgia.  Wearing my red plaid uniform and donning an amusingly unattractive feathered 'do, I belted my Catholic school girl heart out on the stage.  And I swear I have had this song stuck in my head ever since, though anyone who knows me well knows that that means I've only had a few lines of it stuck in my head.  I just can't remember the lines to many songs! But this is such a sweet song with such a sweet meaning that I might buy the book so I can actually commit it to memory so I can sing it to my kids.

Just read the lines:

Inch my inch, row by row, gonna make my garden grow.
All it takes is a rake and a hoe, and a piece of fertile ground.
Inch my inch, row by row, someone bless these seeds I sow.
Someone warm them from below till the rain comes tumblin' down.
Pullin' weeds and pickin' stones, we are made of dreams and bones.
Feel the need to grow my own 'cause the time is close at hand.
Grain for grain, sun and rain, find my way in nature's chain.
Tune my body and my brain to the music from the land.
Plant your rows straight and long, temper them with prayer and song.
Mother Earth will make you strong if you give her love and care.

Or you can listen to the song with another flashback of my youth, John Denver.  His voice sends me immediately back to our family's car, where my parents would put a cassette of his in and my mom would sing loudly (and well) to him.  "Montana Skies" is still one of my favorite songs (I know almost all the words, by the way...another decade and I'll get 'em down solid).

Spring is right around the corner...just 6 more weeks according to Punxsutawney Phil!  Here's a book to enjoy with your little one as a count down through the cold, to the warm.

Carrot Soup by John Segal

 Carrot Soup by John Segal

Rating: 5 stars

I'm on a mission: to get my trio to love soup.  I love soup, so why shouldn't they?  It's simple, healthy, and make-ahead-able.  The problem?  They just don't like it.  YET.

Enter books about soups, including this one.  We've checked out this book a number of times from our great little library, but neither Lorelei nor Ben has suggested "Let's make carrot soup!" when I or they get to the end, where there's a recipe for carrot soup.  YET.

Ben added 6 cups of carrots.

I grabbed the book, checked it out, and brought it home.  Lorelei pulled it from the library bag, read it, got to the last page and guess what she said?  "Let's make carrot soup!"  I stifled my chuckle and replied: "What a great idea!"

Due to Lorelei's long days in kindergarten and our early mornings, it worked out best to make it this morning, after Daddy drove her to the bus.  While I was still sipping coffee and Kiefer was in between breakfast number one (banana and milk) and breakfast number two (cheesey eggs), the boys and I made carrot soup.  The sun hadn't even come up yet, but we were cooking!

I did most of the cooking, to be honest.  I let the kids cut things with butter knives, but carrots and onions required a real knife, so I'll wait a few years to hand those over.  While I sliced and diced, the boys did their favorite kitchen activity ever: pretend cooked.  They pulled out half the contents of the pantry, a bag of potatoes, and my leftover chicken broth cartons and added and mixed and created to their heart's content.

(Clean up took a while, in case you're wondered, but it's done.)

Kiefer minds the "pretend carrot soup" which
had everything but carrots in it.

 This book--I guess I should tell you about it--is a really good spring book (I type as winter is still weeks away).  Spring is Rabbit's favorite season, and he's excited to plant seeds for his favorite vegetable, carrots.  He waters, weeds, and waits until finally--FINALLY!--the carrots are ready.  He grabs his wheelbarrow and heads out.  But there's a problem: he can't find any carrots to dig up.

One by one, he asks his friends if they've seen his carrots.  One by one, they all say no...but one by one the reader sees them sneak in the background with wheelbarrows, bushels, arms full of carrots.  Rabbit is unaware, but Ben and Kiefer both shrieked in delight at the joke (we read the book while the carrot soup was simmering, during Kiefer's breakfast number two).

Discouraged and disappointed, Rabbit heads home...to a surprise party, with all of his friends and carrot soup.

Keep your fingers crossed that the eating of the carrot soup is just as successful as the making of carrot soup for us tonight!  I'm okay with the worst-case scenario: the kids each take a single "thank you bite," the boys get a little practice cooking for real and pretend, and I have lunch made for myself for the next few days.


P.S.  I didn't actually use the recipe in the book.  I like this one a whole lot better!

Wiggle and Waggle by Caroline Arnold

Wiggle and Waggle by Caroline Arnold, illustrated by Mary Peterson

Rating: 5 stars

Ben is into chapter books.  Don't tell him that he actually can't read these, and he'll argue with you with more words than you know what to do with.  The other day he sat reading a Magic Treehouse book while I finished checking out the 513 other books he/we chose at the library when the librarian saw him.  "How old is he?  Is he actually reading that?"  Ben looked up and realized she was asking about him.

"I'm 3 years old."  She looked at me, and I quietly shook my head.  "But he thinks he can!"

So Ben is into any books with chapters, because "chapter" is one of the words that he actually can read.  This book is great for more reasons, but because it has five chapters, it gets two thumbs up from Ben.

I'm not sure how we happened upon it in the beginner reader section of our library, but I'm glad we did.  Wiggle and Waggle are two hard working worms who--you guessed it--wiggle and waggle their way under a garden in order to help it grow.  They make up a (catchy, you-can't-forget-it) song, they spell out their own names in the dirt, they take muddy picnic breaks, they splash in puddles.  All together, like two peas in a pod.  Two worms in the mud!

The illustrations push the book over the edge into the Super Cute category--I know the worms in our yard aren't really this cute.  Including the dead one that was stuck to Kiefer's foot yesterday!  Ew.  Kinda gross...sure hope it wasn't a cousin of one of these guys in the book.  Anyway, Ben and Lorelei had a good time figuring out which one was Wiggle and which one was Waggle, which makes me wonder: Do other kid-readers do this, too?  I love the little logic games that go into it so I totally encourage it.

"Ben, Wiggle is talking here, and the pink worm has its mouth open.  The pink one must be Wiggle!" Lorelei says with the excitement usually reserved for winning the lottery or sleeping in until 7 AM (if you're me).

We've had this book from the library for about two weeks and I think I've read it about five times--plus the time IN the library with Ben, when I happily sang the digging song in the Children's section while other patrons smirked or smiled around me.  I don't care.  I was reading with my kids!  Sometimes that requires a little goofitude.  And I'm fine with that.


P.S.  If you like worm books, check out Diary of A Worm by Doreen Cronin!

White is for Blueberry by George Shannon, illustrated by Laura Dronzek

White is for Blueberry by George Shannon, illustrated by Laura Dronzek

Rating: 5 stars

We all thought this book title was a little silly when we saw it.  WHITE is for BLUEberry?!  How could that be?!  my kids asked their uber-incredulous-silly voices.  So we had to check it out (of course).

Turns out it is a total gem!  And well timed, too.

This book is a tale of perspective, or perhaps of before and after, of seeing things not for what they are but what they were and what they could be...  On the first page is what something likes like in the beginning, and then you turn the page and you see what that something looks like at the end.  For example, there's a bird that starts off pink as a baby and then grows up to be black.  And the sweet potato looks brown when the skin is on, but then orange when you look into it and dig in.

Our tomatoes are yellow, green, then red.

But the blueberry example is by far my favorite, because on our own deck are garden is growing well.  Tomatoes are by far my favorite, and we have five different types of tomatoes growing at five different heights, some bursting through the tops of their cages already.

As I've said before (here), I garden for many reasons, but I love that my kids have to be patient as the vegetables grow.  They know we can pop over to the grocery store and buy tomatoes, but there is definitely something special about growing your own, taking care of the tomatoes, appreciating how the weather affects them, and how they are really pretty imperfect (but more delicious) than the ones we buy at the store.

Anyway, in the book Shannon has a picture of a white flower that soon grows to be a blueberry.  So white really is for blueberry.  Who knew?  I love how this book helps me to teach my kids to have a good perspective, to think out of the box, to look again--and then maybe once more!--and see something new and unique.

I Love Bugs! by Emma Dodd

I Love Bugs! by Emma Dodd

Rating: 4 stars

Somehow, these pictures seem to jump out at me.  Usually that's a good thing, but with a book on bugs, I sorta want to grab a flyswatter and swat the mosquitoes away so they don't bite me.  I told this to Ben, and now he tries to hit the bugs as I turn the page.  Hmmm.  Maybe I should have kept that observation to myself...

This is a basic preschooler book, but a good one.  It's a great one to introduce the whole concept of what my Thai friends would call "same-same-different," or comparison.  On all the pages are bugs, but they are so unique!  So different!  So special!  What a wonderful little lesson for our kids and their budding uniqueness in their little preschool pools of should-we-conform-or-not-ness.  (Did that sentence make sense at all?  I'm keeping it...hoping you figure it out.)

"Yes, I love all bugs!  Hope and fly and crawl bugs."

One page is dedicated to flying and fluttering bugs, another to flying and buzzing bugs, and still another to flying and whiny-buzzing bugs.  (Not sure I get the difference between simply buzzing and whiny-buzzing, but I love that my kids might pause to listen hard--really hard!!--to the sounds that bugs make as they fly.)

A very cute book, worth checking out very soon.  Don't be afraid of the centipede on page six...I am pretty sure it won't crawl off the page and onto your arm...!

Bugs Galore! by Peter Stein, illustrated by Bob Staake

Bugs Galore! by  Peter Stein, illustrated by Bob Staake

Rating: 4.5 stars

Kiefer is our resident Bug Patrol.  We have a few patrols in our house--most notably, "Safety Patrol," which I am constantly calling out to make one of the big kids go to make sure the gate is latched so Kiefer doesn't go up and then (bump, bump, bump) down the stairs unaccompanied.

But Bug Patrol is serious business to Kiefer.  If he sees a stink bug--thankfully we're not yet inundated with them (yet?) this year--he will point to it and yell in his I-can't-talk-yet-but-I-can-yell-already voice: "EHHH!!!"  And he'll continue to yell that out in that piercing little voice of his until I get it.  We all think this is pretty funny, especially when we can't find the darn bug he's honed in on.

So, here are some bug books in honor of our little Bug Patrol officer.

Add caption

This book is almost as wonderful as Cars Galore; maybe once I've read it a hundred and three times I'll love it just as much.

There are kooky drawings, courtesy of the creative Bob Staake, and witty rhymes, courtesy of the funny Peter Stein.  Here's a little taste of what's between the covers:

Some bugs cruise / around in groups.
Some bugs fly in / loop-de-loops.
Some bugs land / smack-dab in soups.
Some bugs crawl / right under ... OOPS. 

Blah!  A stinkbug! / Plug-your-nose bug!
Funky, smelly, / wash-your-clothes bug!
Bugs and bugs and / bilions MORE bugs!
Googols, gaggles / bugs GALORE bugs!

Fun stuff!

Grandpa Green by Lane Smith

Grandpa Green by Lane Smith

Rating: 3.5 stars

 Lorelei and Ben read a Dora book a long time ago where Dora "jumps into the book" to save a princess (blech!).  But the thought of jumping into a book has stayed with them.  This is a book that I'd like to jump into.

Undoubtedly, the Caldecott team got it right when they selected this book to be a winner.  The illustrations are phenomenal, and worthy of purchasing the book.  Smith tells the tale of a boy, illustrating the pictures with bushes pruned to become parts of the story.  When the little boy steals his first kiss, the boy is actually kissing a bush cut to be a girl, leafy lips puckering to meet his.  The boy studies horticulture but goes to a world war instead ("What's a world war, Mommy?"  Hmmm...maybe wanted to wait until , Kindergarten for that one...), but happily finds a woman to marry and grow old with.  They have kids and grandkids...

And then the little boy stumbles into his grandfather, whose memory fails him now.  The grandfather is returning to one of his favorite things in his old age--gardening--and is sharing it with his grandson.  "But the important stuff," the book ends, "the garden remembers for him."

Anyone with an aging parent or grandparent, please cue the tears right about now.  Seriously!  I do hope when I'm old and gray and wrinkled I am able to celebrate the amazing moments in my life--and there have been many--in some way.

This book is not for little kids, except for the illustrations, which can definitely inspire and awe the littlest of eyes.  The older they are, the more they can appreciate the illustrations and how they show the story line.  This is a great gift book for older people, I think.  I love that some children's books are mostly for adults, and this is definitely one of them.

One Little Seed by Elaine Greenstein

One Little Seed by Elaine Greenstein

Rating: 5 stars

This is a simple little book.  Simple words.  Simple pictures.  Simple message.  You can't go wrong with it; I think it should be the base for all of us mother-gardeners who are looking for a book or two to explain the process of gardening...

Here's the whole book (I'm sure you can imagine the beautiful illustration on the corresponding page):

One little seed

Our garden, day one.

Dropped in a hole
Watered and loved
Roots unfurl
Sprout uncurls
Stretch in rain
Weed and watch
Bud bursts out
Sun shines bright
Blooms blossom
One little seed is picked

That's it, and that's all.

Why do we garden?  At our house, there are a few reasons: To save a bit of money; to become a little closer to nature; to know the origin of our food; to differentiate between vegetables grown on a vine, in the ground, etc; to have something productive to do.

But the biggest reason: to teach patience.  Good things take TIME.  And often, a lot of it.

A few weeks ago we checked out a Franklin book where Franklin's class each gets a seed from their teacher.  Their homework: plant it, watch it grow, and identify what sort of plant it is.  When they can identify it, they are to bring it back to school and plant it in the school's garden.  Franklin's plant takes the longest, but finally (of course) he realizes what it is (I can't remember!) and brings it back, happy that his plant can join all of his friends' plants.  The teacher asks them what plants need, and they chime in the same answers as we did when we were kids: water, soil, sun.

And Franklin adds: "Time!"

I was so proud--SO PROUD!--of Lorelei when she told me that she also added "time" when her teacher asked her class what plants need to thrive.  It is just so true.  We all need time to grow...  Time to get over difficult times, time to get rid of that baby weight, time to watch your garden bloom, time to get past an un-fun phase with your kids, time to learn what loving your husband really, truly means, time to understand what it means to be happy.

So, we simply garden.  And we simplly learn life lessons from gardening (and lots of other stuff).  And we simply teach our kids...  One day at a time.

Ugh! A Bug by Mary Bono

Ugh! A Bug by Mary Bono

Rating: 5 stars

I asked Lorelei what sort of party she wanted for her birthday; she replied, "A princess party!" uber-enthusiastically.

Because I'm mean like that, I said, "No."  Then I thought to myself, That was pretty mean.  Perhaps I could soften my response a bit?  I explained to her that I thought it was important to make the boys at the party welcome, and they might not be excited about a princess party.  And then, because I know how to get under skin, I used her favorite word in my next argument: "Besides, everyone has princess parties.  Let's have one that is unique."  Her eyes lit up, and she got excited.

We decided on a garden party.  Not just a fairies and tea party garden party, but a wear-boots-'cause-you're-gonna-get-messy garden party.  We bought all our vegetables and set out the pots they needed to be planted in and helped the little gardeners (aka guests) plant our own garden.  It was a lot of fun--I only wish that we had more to plant, because we had so many eager hands!

Lorelei's twin cousins at the "reading center" at her party.

Because I'm nerdy like that, we had "centers" when the kids arrived.  Both Lorelei and Ben dig centers at school, and the concept has been super useful for me for playdates or just managing a long rainy afternoon with my own kids.  We had a sidewalk chalk center, a painting rocks like ladybugs center, a bubble center, and...you guessed it!  A book center.

This book was one of the garden-themed books we included.  It is a fun book--a great rhyme--that asks kids what they do when they see a bug with a ton of questions.  For example: "If you spied a centipede slithering by,/ would you reach for a stick? Run away?  Start to cry?"  The book ends by encouraging children NOT to stick bug in a jar for they are always happier out in nature.  Thankfully Bono makes no mention of that horrible boys-always-do-it thing about burning bugs with a magnifying glass (shudder)!

The illustrations are plain and simple and great.  It makes the kids giggle, and they can find some of the bugs mentioned in the book in our own yard and woods, which is always satisfying to me.  Entertaining and educational?  That's a good book in my mind.

Because I'm cheap like that, I bought our copy for 99 cents.  That's the only downside to this book: it's out of print.  But the one we found is in fantastic condition.  (Confession: It was actually supposed to be a gift, but we liked it so much we kept it!)  If you find a used copy, it might be worth grabbing it.  But you can always get it the way we first found it: our wonderful library.  And it's even cheaper than 99 cents.

Beth's Post: The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle

The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle

Rating: 5 stars

Eric Carle is a master at combining beautiful illustrations with thoughtful stories and subtlety engaging children in life science subjects.


Our copy of The Tiny Seed is worn with years of reading, the binding taped in several spots and a bold, “JULIA” written in the first page to mark that we are never, ever getting rid of this book. My kids loved looking at the pictures and were mesmerized by the story as toddlers, pages were used with tracing paper to copy the trees and flowers, and now that they are great readers they still love picking it up and reading it to me.

A tiny seed, smaller than any of the others blows with the strong Autumn wind and flies by the sun, over icy mountains, the ocean, the desert and drops down to a perfect grassy spot only to narrowly avoid being eaten by a bird. It rests in the soil through the long winter nights, and grows to astounding heights in the spring. In the end, autumn again, it releases its tiny seeds in the wind.

I hope that you will get to experience this beautiful book, but you can’t have our copy, we’re still reading it.

Waiting for Wings by Lois Ehlert

Waiting for Wings by Lois Ehlert

Rating: 4.5 stars

I think that Lois Ehlert is an acquired taste.  So maybe I just haven't read enough of her books?  I know that there are plenty out there--even in our small local library there are a dozen through which I've flipped a few times but, for whatever arbitrary reason, I've put back on the shelf.  Her images are somewhat Eric Carle-like, and we like him, so...what's the problem?

But this book is definitely a good, despite my lack of love for the author.  It is nonfiction; it tells the story of how caterpillars become butterflies through a nice poem and beautiful artwork.  I like that the focus is the butterflies themselves, and that the story doesn't end when they come out from the cocoon.  They fly out and "catch a whiff of something sweet. / They follow that fragrant scent of perfume, / until they find our garden in bloom."

The fact that we have several unruly butterfly bushes that are nearly trees helps make this book attractive to us.  On any given day and at any given time, we can walk out and watch four or five huge butterflies feasting on the flowers.  This book provides a little bit more information--just the right amount for a 3 year old or 4 year old--about what the butterflies are doing on our butterfly bush.  Lois Ehlert also includes that butterflies unroll their tongues to eat, so that's been fun to mimic both while we're watching our butterflies and while we're eating our own feasts.  Ben's attempts to "unroll" his tongue is pretty funny!

The other nice thing about the book: It doesn't end when the poem does.  There are two huge pages dedicated to butterfly identification, one of which included the Tiger Swallowtail that is the main feeder at our bush.  There's also one page for flower identification, with pretty pictures of all the different flowers that attract butterfly.  Sadly for us, deer are also attracted to many of them, but we still manage to squeeze in some so that our family can watch these flying beauties all summer long.

I love that there Ben and Lorelei are learning, through this book and others, about how species are unique within their own category.  That'll be the same when Lorelei starts preschool next year, so I'm glad that our butterflies and this book are teaching her that lesson a little sooner than she needs it.

Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey

Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey

Rating: 5 stars (of course)

This summer we are going on weekly field trips.  Field Trip Wednesdays.  Yesterday was our third field trip; we went blueberry picking.  It was the hottest day of the year but we went anyway, along with some of my very favorite people and their adventurous kids.

Ben's favorite part was definitely the tractor ride from the parking lot to the fields.  It was already 88 degrees by the time we stepped off of the trailer and followed a dude with an orange flag to our assigned bushes.  While walking to our spot in the row of bushes, we passed a mother and her two children and --gasp!-- guess what they were reading underneath the welcome shade of the tallest blueberry bushes I'd ever seen?  Blueberries for Sal!  Of course, I couldn't resist the urge to say, "We love that book, too!  We should have brought it along, too!"  Luckily, I did resist the urge to ask them to pose for a picture and then put it on this blog.  I think that might have weired them out a bit.  Proof I can bite my tongue.  Sometimes.

Anyway, we had a blast.  I didn't realize that I came with such Serious Pickers.  I was taking pictures and handing out clementines to everyone's kids while Serious Picker #1, Caitlin, and Serious Picker #2, Michele, filled an entire bucket in approximately 4.2 minutes.  The littlest Serious Picker was Lorelei; she stood there and picked blueberries for 15 minutes without tasting a single one!  Apparently she delegated that job to Ben, who pulled a Sal and sat down and just pulled berries down one handful at a time.  Lorelei turned pink within that time from that time but obediently drank when instructed, and then told me: "We need to get back to work, Mommy!  Our bucket is not full yet!"

Man!  We produced a 3 year old blueberry-picking machine!

I wish I had been trickier in combining my blog with my children's activities: I could have had them pose in pictures just like McCloskey drew or made them say "Kupink! Kuplank! Kuplunk!" (though we had a gigantic plastic buckets, not small tin pails) or looked (happily unsuccessfully) for bears, or crows, or a partridge family in the fields.  But we were having too good a time to stop for a book-related anything, which was just fine with me.

I was having another bee-bim bop moment, feeling fairly mom-of-the-day-ish.  My kids were able to:

1.  Break out of their normal cycle of activities (that includes an embarrassing number of trips to Starbucks)

2.  Experience child labor (or, tough it out in imperfect conditions)

3.  Relate a book to real life (we talked about how the fields at Butler's were so much taller than those in the book)

4.  Pick their own snack/dessert/breakfast (for the next month or two)

Oh, and by the way, I have 7 pounds of blueberries.  Good grief!  What do you do with 7 pounds of blueberries when you really don't have to can them to store up for food for the winter?!  Please let me know if you'd like any.

The Curious Garden by Peter Brown

The Curious Garden by Peter Brown

Rating: 4.5 blooming stars

Our family has a serendipitous relationship with Peter Brown.  On one of our first trips to the library, Ben grabbed a random book off of the shelf.  That book was The Flight of the Dodo; the entire book is about birds pooping from the sky.  Ok, not entirely, but I just didn't get it.  I thought that the author needed about five more books through which he could mature...I also thought it was the first book I'd read where the illustrator should stick to illustrating.  Know your strengths and weaknesses, right?  Well, I was wrong on that one.

Fast forward about six months.  Lorelei, Ben, and I were at a big ol' bookstore, trying to find a book for Lorelei's friend who was undergoing surgery that day.  I wanted to find an inspiring book that would captivate her attention while her body recovered.  I came across The Curious Garden, totally by luck.  (It seems like large book stores are frustrating places to find good children's books.  They stock what sells, rather than the gems that many people don't know about.  Bring back the local little shops!  I'd have to drive 30 minutes to get to the closest one!  Sigh.  Maybe in my next life.  Or do I just want to be Meg Ryan in "You've Got Mail"?)  I picked it up, even though the last Peter Brown book I picked up reminded me too much of my diaper-changing day job.

Anyway, Peter Brown definitely got it right this time.  Inspired by a true story, the book is about curious little, red-headed Liam who lives in a dark, dreary city and decides to add some green to it.  He finds a sad, struggling little garden and decides to take care of it.  Eventually, the gray city becomes alive with green.  The illustrations are just wonderful--I was truly swept away in them. 

I think that I'd be a fan of the book even if the story was just ok and the illustrations were just fine.  It has the word curious in it.  I want Lorelei and Ben to know that word inside and out!  And, like little Liam, I want them to act on their curiosity and maybe just maybe they'll add a little bit of joy to the environments in which they evolve.  My fingers are crossed!

Good job, Peter Brown!

My Garden by Kevin Henkes

My Garden by Kevin Henkes

Rating: 3.5 stars

We're fans of Kevin Henkes, so we came across this book soon after it was released earlier this year.  It was Easter time, and we were all pretty tired of anything winter-related after one of the snowiest and coldest winters in a decade.  We were just getting into Henkes' great books, reading Owen and Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse and Weekend With Wendell and Chrysanthemum again and again and again.  When I spotted this one, with a gorgeous cover full of Spring flowers, you better believe I grabbed it and shoved it into our already-full library bag to check out.

I do like it.  It's a good book, with a sweet message that encourages gardening (something I like to encourage in our own house) and imagination.  The little girl is her mother's helper in the garden, and within a few pages takes off into her own imagination to tell the reader what her garden would be like.  I love many of the little girls ideas: She would have flowers that could change color just by thinking about them, and having patterned flowers, too.  The flowers would grow back just moments after she picks them! She'd have tomatoes as large as beach balls, an idea that made Lorelei's and my mouth water just thinking about it.

It's silly to complain about a book that made the New York Times Best Sellers List and stayed there for a few months.  But, of course, that's what I'm going to do.  Why can't the little girl just focus on the positive?  Why does Henkes have to have her say she doesn't like carrots, when there are probably way too many kids who push away their carrots and other vegetables?  Why does the little girl have to choose to have a jelly bean bush?  Don't those have a bunch of high-fructose corn syrup in them or something hideous like that?  If Jillian Michaels bought a children's book, this sure wouldn't be it! 

The pictures are so beautiful, though, that I have to forgive Henkes his shortcomings.  The garden in his book makes me impatient for our own flower garden to mature...right now there is way too much mulch where I want color to be!  We'll read this book a whole lot more, I know, and we'll appreciate its positives, because there are many.