Penguin Cha Cha by Kristi Valiant

Penguin Cha Cha by Kristi Valiant

Rating: 5 stars

Julia loves the zoo. She watches the daily performances from a tree branch--she has a good vantage point from which she can spot some black fins grabbing random items from performers on the stage. These black fins belong to a group of penguins that are obviously up to something.

Julia wants to know what they're up to.

She follows them back to their penguin cove, but they just stand around acting and looking like "penguin popsicles"--they aren't doing anything when they know she's around.

This is what Julia sees through her binoculars.

So she does what any kid would do: she spies on them. She goes up high and, with some good binoculars, she spots those penguins DANCING! With the stolen props from the performance, they dance around the cove like nobody's watching. Julia wants to not just watch, she wants to join in! But every time she tries, she gets the same: penguin popsicles.

So she does what any kid would do: she dresses up like them. Her costume is hilarious and spot-on, and she waddles in with her pillow-as-white-tummy doing its best to disguise her human-ness. It doesn't work. The penguins still stand around like big popsicles.

So she does what any kid would do: she puts on her fanciest outfit and aims to dazzle them with her cha cha. She juts out her chin and puts back her shoulders and reaches out her arms and cha cha chas with such enthusiasm and joy and grace that the penguins can't resist joining her. Finally, she gets what she wants: she gets to dance with the penguins!

The penguins can't resist: Tap, flap, cha cha cha!

My kids and I are blown away by this book. It is sweet, it is funny, it is cool. Valiant's illustrations are drop-dead gorgeous. I want to sit and study every single illustration because there are so many great details, so much joy sketched in young Julia's face and arms and movements!

But my kids and I also want to know: will there be another story, similar to this one, about monkeys doing magic in their monkey house?  We hope so, because we've enjoyed Penguin Cha Cha so much...we want more!

Little Mouse by Alison Murray

Little Mouse by Alison Murray

Rating: 5 stars

I usually write before the sun comes up.  I write before my kids wake up.  Therefore, I am often sipping coffee and paging through a children's book all by myself at 5:15 AM before reviewing it.  That's exactly what I'm doing right now--with a snoring dog curled up beside me on the couch, laptop on my lap, Little Mouse over the keyboard, coffee just an arm's length away, balanced on another book on the arm of the couch.

As I page through this beautifully written and illustrated book, I think what a quiet masterpiece it is.

On the first page, a little girl sits nice and close to her mother, reading a book with her.  The words: "Sometimes, when I'm being quiet and cuddly, my mommy calls me her little mouse."

I don't really sound like a little mouse...
Trumpety, trump, trump! Too-wit, too-wit, too-woooot!
Yowly, howly, howl!

But the little girl doesn't feel like a little mouse...  She is TALL! (And we see a giraffe sweetly nibbling at the little girl, who is tall on the top of a staircase.  She is STRONG! (We see her straining to pull a small wagon, in the shadow and in the same pose of a mighty bull.)  She chomps her food like a hungry horse, roars bravely like a lion, makes all sorts of interesting sounds like an elephant, owl, and fox. She stomps like a grumpy bear, makes waves like a whale.

But at bedtime, she's happy to be "quiet and cozy, cuddly and dozy"...  just Mommy's little mouse.

I love how one little girl, in a single day, can be so many different animals in her imagination and through her moods and actions.  Kids are so multifaceted and colorful and creative and BIG in such great ways!  I hope with all my heart that your kids and my kids don't get their colorful-ness and BIG-ness diluted as they figure out the tween and teenage years...I hope they realize they can still be brave like a lion and still want to be quiet and cozy like a little mouse (preferably with their mother).

As I sit in this quiet, the last image definitely pulls at my heart.  My two boys are young and still usually need that last tuck-in to be from their mother.  But Lorelei is old enough that she's more like the other animals, and doesn't need a daily dose of her mother, doesn't need to be curled up in my lap.  She still does fit in my lap, though, and I'm grateful for that and for her wanting to be there a few times each week.  I know I'm supposed to be preparing her (and her brothers) to soar on their own like a bird and march to their own beat proudly like an elephant but...I'll miss the cuddly, mousey days a whole lot.  So I'll savor the mousey moments like crazy now.

The Shape of My Heart by Mark Sperring

The Shape of My Heart by Mark Sperring, illustrated by Alys Paterson

Rating: 4 stars

Here's a sweet book about a parent's love for a child, explained through the senses and with many, many shapes.

I'll explain.

Sperring writes: "This is the shape of our eyes.  And these are the shapes that we might see."  Paterson illustrates all the little things that a parent and child might see together while playing or walking or being together.  A fun dinner plate, a green plant, a picture in the process of being painted, a balloon, a ball of yarn.  All little reminders of things done together--or maybe things that will be done together.

Sperring writes: "This is the shape of our mouths. Now, what would you like to eat?" Paterson illustrates all the little things that a parent and child might eat together--hot pasta with peas, what-a-treat lollipops, carrots fresh from the garden, sweet strawberries, a hunk of cheese.  All little examples of food--both staples and treats--that will be eaten together.

In between the pages with things the parent and child will see, hear, touch, and taste together are

elaborate illustrations comprised of simple shapes that give a child a great reason to pause and take in the illustration before quickly turning the page.

The last page is definitely the best.  The punchline.  The reason I bought the book.

Sperring writes: "And this is the shape I love you with.  This is the shape of my heart."  Paterson illustrates all those little things that the parent and child did together, this time tucked closely together, collage-style in the shape of a heart.

For me, this is a great reminder to us parents that all those little, very tangible things we do with a child point out how much we love them.  "Forever is just a string of a lot of right nows," said a character in a movie we watched last night.  And love is just a collection of little moments...little moments that hopefully we parents will choose to be in--I mean really BE in, in a join-the-fun sort of way--again and again and again.

Hope your Valentine's Day is filled with a few of these moments.

I Like It When... by Mary Murphy

I Like It When... by Mary Murphy

Rating: 5 stars

This is one of our new go-to books for newborns or for a first birthday.  (And it really would be appropriate for a second birthday, too.)  It is heart-meltingly wonderful and I think most of us should read it every day.

I like it when you hold my hand.
I like it when you let me help.
I like it when we eat new things.
 I like it when we play peekaboo.
I like it when you tickle me.
I like it when you dance with me.
I like it when you read me stories.
I like it when you hug me tight.
I like it when we splash about.
I like it when we kiss good night.
I love you.  I love you, too!

That's the whole book.  I'm sure you can picture a cute penguin parent doing all of these things with her even cuter penguin chick, their beaks easily forming a smile on every page. 

I mean, isn't this what parenthood is all about?  Spending time with our little ones--actually playing with them.  I have a really random resume, one that's not much use for landing me a powerful job, but there's always plenty of stuff to talk about.  One of those random things I did was teach horseback riding lessons one summer at a camp tucked away in western Washington state.  My main job was to give kids an idea of how to take care of a horse and how to ride a horse, but on the first day of the week-long session a counselor and I were in charge of playing with the kids.  Just playing.  Usually that meant soccer, something I'm not particularly great at, but it was such a wonderful lesson in dropping my adult important-ness and just settling in with the silly.  I'm so grateful for that summer, if only for that one very important lesson.

So let's play with our kids an extra ten minutes today!  Save the cooking and cleaning and email answering and bill paying and phone calling and, oh yes, the blogging for after bedtime or tomorrow.  We've got to somehow jam it all in, but...sometimes, let's just be like these penguins and hold hands, dance around, splash about, and read books.

A Penguin Story by Antoinette Portis

A Penguin Story by Antoinette Portis

Rating: 5 curious stars

It's nearly 100 degrees out for the fourth or fifth day in a row (I've lost count...am becoming a puddle) so I thought I'd write about a book with snow in it to make myself feel cooler.

We received this as a gift last Christmas; both Lorelei and Ben love it.  Ben especially, as he digs penguins.  What kid doesn't go through a penguin phase?  We are already excited to see them at a zoo whenever we brave the traffic and crowds this summer to see the National Zoo.

Edna the Penguin is tired of the three colors she always sees: black, white, and blue.  Every day, every night, the same colors.  She believes--she has this deep faith in herself--that there is Something Else.  She's not sure what, but she just knows with her little penguin heart that there is Something Else, some other color out there to see.  So she sets off, hiking night and day, with little food to sustain her, till...

WOW!!!

She finds Something Orange!  It's a tent, and a flag, and a glove, and a jacket, and a coat...tons of orange stuff at a scientists' camp near the penguin camp.  She is so excited that she turns around, runs home, grabs all her friends, and together they trudge back to the camp to see the Something Else.

Kinda makes me think of Plato's Allegory of the Cave...ah, Philosophy 101 back at Seattle U...

The scientists and the penguins make friends, and one guy gives the penguins an orange glove with which to return home so they will always have another color in their black, white, and blue lives. 

The story ends with Edna thinking, "There must be Something Else..." and you see a green ship in the background.

This is a really sweet book, and one kids get excited about.  The illustrations are simple, wonderful, clear-cut pictures that, like I said, Ben especially loves.  I know that Antoinette Hartis is best know for her Not a Box book, which we appreciate, but this one is better for us during this phase of Lorelei and Ben's childhood. 

We'll be reading it all summer long.