Finding Spring by Carin Berger

Finding Spring by Carin Berger
Greenwillow Books

Rating: 4 stars

Seasons are such a great thing. They embody that wise, ubiquitous "this, too, shall pass" magnet that is stuck on most of our refrigerators but we've seen it too many times to really remember what it's all about. Every year, the same magical thing happens: Winter melts to Spring. Spring morphs to Summer. Summer blows into Fall. Fall gives way to Winter. Again and again and again. Seasons are one way--a really great way, methinks--to teach our kids that life goes on. No matter what.

And when I look outside and see snow falling a-freaking-gain, I have to do my best to shake my head and smile, try to appreciate my kids' delight on another morning with freezing temperatures and school delays closures, and choose not to be grumpy. Instead, I'll dust a bit of "snow" (powdered sugar) on their waffles to celebrate this white stuff.

I've gotten off topic. No, I actually was never on topic. I started the blogpost with a tangent rather than interjected one in between paragraphs... Either way, Finding Spring was of course going to find its way to our library bag because I really want to find Spring in my own life. My kids, despite loving the snow, really want to find Spring, too. So we read this with earnest, as if somewhere in the pages of the book was the answer to Spring's whereabouts.

Mama and Maurice are bears preparing to hibernate for Winter. But all Maurice can think about is Spring. "Waiting is hard," Mama says wisely. "Right now it is time to sleep."

"Wow!" says Maurice.

Mama nods off; Maurice wanders off. He's just not sleepy and is curious to find Spring. Alone and unafraid, he asks forest creatures and looks everywhere for Spring. He comes up empty-handed until he feels an icy sting on his nose. A snowflake! He chases the snowflakes falling from the sky until he arrives at the top of Great Hill, where he witnesses a gorgeous snowfall, a sweet illustration made from a photograph of dozens of different snowflakes, some held up with push-pins and some glued down. It's a neat change of illustration pace.

Maurice realizes Winter is coming and runs back to the cave, to his Mama, and sleeps.

When they wake, they realize Spring is here. Finally! But Maurice wonders where it is exactly, and asks the same creatures he asked months before. He searches high and low until he remembers Great Hill. Together, in parade-like form and celebration, he and his pals march up and look out and see flowers blooming everywhere. Hoorah!

Okay, my turn. Can I look out and--nope, not yet. With one inch down and snow still falling, it is clearly still Winter around these parts!

(The snowfall pages in this book made me think of this Waiting for Winter book we bought years ago. The kids ran to find it in on our messy shelves and we laughed again at the animals' thinking that toothbrushes and tin cans were snowflakes...!)

Mama Built A Little Nest by Jennifer Ward

Mama Built A Little Nest by Jennifer Ward, illustrated by Steve Jenkins

Rating: 5 stars

If you've got a nature-loving kid somewhere near you, this book needs to be in his or her hands. We were all blown away by how many facts we learned from a book that appeared to be a simple rhyme with gorgeous illustrations.

Ward gives us a gift of a book jam-packed with great information about a bunch of different birds--from the more well-known emperor penguin and falcons to more unique birds such as the weaverbird (the yellow bird pictured on the cover), falcon, grebe, and shorebird.

This is a grow-with-me book, or a book for a household like ours--with one strong, curious reader; one emerging, interested reader; and one bird-loving, letter-finder. On each two-page spread is a succinct, one-stanza rhyme about the bird illustrated on the page. There are also several sentences about the bird written in a smaller, different font for readers like Lorelei to read on her own or for me to read to Ben (he can read most of the words in the actual poem himself).

Mama built a little nest / inside a sturdy trunk.
She used her beak to tap-tap-tap / the perfect place to bunk.

Each page not only shows the reader what the bird looks like, but what the nest is like. The diversity of each bird--from what it looks like to how it makes its nest--impressed me greatly and was fun to point out to my kids. The birds and their neat nests grabbed my kids' attention and set off their imaginations.

Here are some of my favorite facts about the birds and their nests in this book:

• A hummingbird makes the smallest cup-shaped nest out of spiderwebs so the nest will stretch as the chicks grow.
• The male cactus wren makes many dome-shaped nests to attract a female. If impressed, the female will choose one and then continue to add to its structure.
• Grebes create a floating nest on the water and anchor it to water plants.
• The swiftlet makes an edible nest (!!) using tube-shaped saliva, which hardens in the air. Swiftlet nests are used in bird's nest soup, a Chinese delicacy.

My kids love this type of bird feeder!

This is a wonderful, one-of-a-kind book that pairs nicely with the kind of bird feeder we have attached to our window...click HERE for link to purchase.

Tap the Magic Tree by Christie Matheson

Tap the Magic Tree by Christie Matheson

Rating: 4 stars

This week Lorelei and Ben are at camp.  A camp that requires a bus.  A bus that will need to be ridden every day, starting in the fall.  As a rising second grader, Lorelei has been riding this bus for two years.  She's a book-wielding, bus-riding pro.  Ben, as a rising kindergartener, is a newbie. A rookie. And Ben was nervous for his first bus ride on this first day of camp.  As he matures, the hump he needs to get over before he's comfortable and confident decreases in size, but…it's still there.

On Monday morning he came down in his pajama bottoms, a bare chest, and a very wobbly chin.

"I'm scared, Mommy," he confessed, his eyes full of tears.  I gave him a hug, told him it was normal to feel scared on the first day of anything.  I had opened the door to the deck, letting in the sounds of a spring morning fill the space in which I was sitting and writing.  "Can I go outside?" he asked.  I nodded.

We are lucky to live in the woods, surrounded by tall trees that house loudly chirping birds.  I don't know what Ben did out there with only pajama bottoms and without shoes, but he came back in ten minutes later with a smile on.

We must have some magic trees that sprinkled some of their calming magic down on my nervous Ben.  It makes me smile now, just a few days later, to remember how quick was the transformation, how trees really did help get him to a better mood. I'm grateful that somehow this book now houses this memory inside its pages.

Tap the Magic Tree is a beautiful book, about a subject we love: trees.  I snatched it right up when I saw it in the library, eager to find out more about it. Flipping through it, I saw it was most likely inspired by Press Here, the wildly successful and truly wonderful book that's been on the New York Times best seller list for--get this--144 weeks.  And that made me skeptical of Tap the Magic Tree.

But I needn't have been.  The morning after Ben's nervous bus debut (which was wildly successful!), my trio and I sat outside for breakfast, surrounded by acres of tall, tall trees, and read this book together.    I wasn't sure it would work--Press Here is a lap book for one, really, not a circle-time book for a crowd--but it did work, and really well!

Matheson instructs us to tap the bare brown tree, then tap it thrice, then tap it many times, and as I turned the pages, the bare brown tree has more and more leaves on it.  When the kids "rubbed the tree to make it warm," buds appeared.  Instructions helped us help the tree to mature the buds to blossoms and then apples, then watch the apples fall, the leaves turn autumnal colors, then fall, then make snow…  You get the idea.

It worked, and worked well.  Especially for the three younger book lovers at the table who didn't start out skeptical at all.  We watched together the magical transformation of a single tree through the seasons, including pajama-clad Ben whose own magical transformation happened just the morning before!

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!

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!

The Little Mouse, The Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear by Don and Audrey Wood, illustrated by Don Wood

The Little Mouse, The Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear by Don and Audrey Wood, illustrated by Don Wood

Rating: 4 stars

I think most people read this books to their kids when those "kids" are actually infants, or barely walking.  I've heard of it before and read it at the bookstore out of curiosity, but this is the first time we've all read it together, little Kiefer included.  We all give it one thumb's up, though for different reasons than I expected.

The story, in case you've not read it: Mouse finds a strawberry and wants to eat it, but this voice tells him that there's a big, hungry bear who wants to eat it.  Mouse tries to hide it, guard it, and disguise it...but the voice tells him that the bear will sniff it out and find it.  The only way to keep safe from the bear is to slice it in half and share it with the mysterious voice, and then it will be gone before the bear finds it.

"But, little Mouse, haven't you heard about the big, hungry Bear?"

Things we like:

• That mouse is so silly!  His expressions are so wonderful, and Ben giggles at every picture on every page.
• It is very fun to read, especially the page where the mouse shakes with fear.  Ben laughed like crazy as I shook the book like crazy.
• Nice lesson on sharing...a mom can't dislike that!
• Kiefer is amused by the book (or, more accurately, my reading of it), Ben giggles throughout it, and Lorelei asks some good questions.  That's a good book: it holds the attention of a wide range of kids.
• The book makes us wonder, and think--who is talking to mouse?  It is mysterious, and we don't know the real answer.  What a fun twist for little kids who are usually told The Answer.
• The book makes us question:  Where is that bear?  Why don't we get to see him?  Does the bear really exist, or is the mysterious voice tricking the mouse into sharing?  (Okay, is it bad that I suggested this to inquisitive Lorelei?  Will it make her suspect intentions that are actually fine and true??  Mommy demerit for me...)

We checked out this book because we're starting our summer field trips a little early this year.  We're going strawberry picking for the first time on Friday!  Lorelei and Ben are very excited.  We've picked blueberries (check out pictures from our first time picking, here in the review of Blueberries for Sal).  This year I'm hoping to link our field trips to books a little more thoughtfully...keep your fingers crossed that this works all summer long!  Having three kids sometimes challenges my ability to fulfill a few aspirations here and there...!

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.

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.