Arthur's Tractor: A Fairy Tale with Mechanical Parts by Pippa Goodhart

Arthur's Tractor: A Fairy Tale with Mechanical Parts by Pippa Goodhart

Rating: 2 stars

This is the most random children's books I've ever read. I thought it might be a whimsical mix of boy stuff (tractors) and girl stuff (princesses); as I've got one of each, maybe this was the perfect combo book?  Um, no.

Arthur is a pretty bad farmer who swears (creatively: "Oh, dollups of dung, the blim blam blade has broken!") every time his tractor breaks down. Meanwhile, in the background, without his noticing, a dragon threatens a princess, and a prince intervenes to save her. As the prince saves the princess, the tractor breaks down for the fourth time.  Arthur realizes he needs tools to fix his tractor, so he borrows the prince's sword, the dragon's fire, and the princess's scarf to get the job done.

Then he suddenly realizes there is a fair maiden behind him, and he starts hitting on her.

Without her uttering but three sentences, she accepts his proposal to live on his farm forever, and the prince and the dragon disappear as the sun sets and the new couple sits on Arthur's tractor together.
 
Oh my.

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.

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.

Mama, Is It Summer Yet? by Nikki McClure

Mama, Is It Summer Yet? by Nikki McClure

Rating: 3.5 stars

On Father's Day Lorelei, Ben, and I made a list of Daddy's favorite things so that we could give/make/provide those to him.  On the list, tucked between homemade oatmeal cookies and tinkering in the yard, was taking an afternoon nap.  So Lorelei and I happily obliged; we read books to our boys, tucked them into their respective beds, and went to the bookstore.  It was a treat for all of us! 

That morning in the New York Times Book Review was a special children's section.  When they have reviews of children's books, I show them to Lorelei--once or twice we've already read them, which makes her feel pretty proud to know the books that she sees in Mommy and Daddy's newspaper.  Since they had the Children's Bestseller lists, we decided to bring the list along and see if we could find any books on it.  I particularly wanted to read The Quiet Book (I love the idea of it!) and Over the Rainbow.  We couldn't find either of those books (drat!), but we did find plenty of others.

Including Mama, Is It Summer Yet? 

The illustrations are incredibly beautiful.  I looked up Nikki McClure's bio and found out that she arms herself with an X-acto knife and cuts out her images from a single sheet of paper.  Pretty impressive!  The pieces of art she creates for this book are just gorgeous.  I will definitely seek out other books she's illustrated because the images are so captivating.  The text is nicely simple: A little boy asks her mother if it's summer yet, and she says no, and gives an example of how the boy should know that summer is almost here.

However, the story doesn't make me want to read the book again and again.  It reminds me of a road trip I don't ever want to take, with my kids in the back seat, asking "Are we there yet?" and then, five minutes later, "Are we there yet?" and then, five minutes later, "Are we there yet?" and then...  You get the idea.  The story would be so much better if the "Are we there yet?" pages were just taken out (in my humble opinion).

Still, if I were an art teacher, I'd want a book like this within arm's reach to show kids the different types of art that they can create.  It is illustrations like these that make me really appreciate artists for choosing to devote their time and energy to children's books.  What a gift to kids like ours!

PS  Check out the artist/author's GORGEOUS journals.  One for new mothers and one "verb-laden" journal.

Full, Full, Full of Love by Trish Cooke

Full, Full, Full of Love by Trish Cooke, illustrated by Paul Howard

Rating: 4 stars

Lorelei's favorite line in this whole book is what Gran says at the end of the book, after the meal is gobbled up by her whole family.  She pulls up a footstool and says, "Ok, kids: One wash, one dry!"  Lorelei makes me act it out.  I can't wait for the day that I can FULL act it out!  If this isn't enough of a reason to get this book, what is?

Here's the story: Mom drops off little Jay Jay at his grandmother's house, where she is getting Sunday dinner ready for the whole family.  He's waiting, mostly patiently, even though he's hungry.  Finally, the whole family pulls up and they all gather 'round the table, stuff themselves silly, then help clean up.  That last part is the best part for me as the main cleaner-upper of all messes!

This is a great book to read aloud to kids, and though there's not a whole lot to the story, it is a comforting tale of family with equally comforting illustrations, with a highlight on Gran.

Tikki Tikki Tembo by Arlene Mosel

Tikki Tikki Tembo retold by Arlene Mosel, illustrated by Blair Lent

Rating: 4 stars

Lorelei loves this book.  She runs around reciting the older boy's name: Tikki tikki tembo-no sa rembo-chari bari ruchi-pip peri pembo.  At 3, she realizes that it's pretty crazy to have a name that long.  As a little lover of anything that rhymes, this book is one that will get read over and over again.

I'm glad for that--because the book represents both a culture so very different from her day to day and a culture that is from a region of the world I love.  I love that the story is about a little family in China, and that the illustrations are vastly different from any other illustrations we've ever seen in any other book.  The illustrations alone make me want to buy this book (I always wrestle with that: to buy or just check out again and again?  My husband is glad I usually go with the latter).  They are gorgeous and so very Asian in all the right ways.  As a former volunteer in both Thailand (Peace Corps) and India (with Missionaries of Charity), I love that a piece of my slightly random past has found a way into my children's lives before the day we can travel there.

But the story isn't exactly a traditional children's story as we Americans define it. 

The story is about a mother and her two sons: her oldest and most favored is named (deep breath) Tikki tikki tembo-no sa rembo-chari bari ruchi-pip peri pembo, meaning "honored and most favored son."  Her second son is Chang, meaning "little or nothing."

Humph.  Poor guy.

The well (check out the picture) is the center of the story: First, Chang falls in, and Tikki tikki tembo-no sa rembo-chari bari ruchi-pip peri pembo runs and gets his mother, who gets the Old Man with the Ladder, who rescues Chang fairly quickly.  Then, later, Tikki tikki tembo-no sa rembo-chari bari ruchi-pip peri pembo (yes, I used the cut and paste option) falls into the well.  Chang does his best to return the favor but his name is so long and he has to say it so many times that Tikki tikki tembo-no sa rembo-chari bari ruchi-pip peri pembo remains in the well and under water much longer; his full recovery takes many weeks. 

The Old Man with the Ladder performs CPR on both of them!  (Ok, it's not called CPR: "He pumped the water out of him, and pumped the air into him.  He pumped the water out of him, and pumped the air into him.")  Some kids might get a little spooked if they understand exactly what is going on--the brothers almost drown.  For any child afraid of water, this might not be the best book for them. 

We'll check the book out again.  I'm not afraid to explain to Lorelei and Ben exactly what is happening in the book, and exactly why a different culture would value first sons so much more than their second sons (or any daughters).  I'm aiming to broaden their horizon through books, even if that means a slightly chilly tale underneath a layer of beautiful illustrations.  We are going to follow through on this illustrator, Blair Lent, to see what other Asian-inspired images he's created...stay tuned!

Dandelion by Don Freeman

Dandelion by Don Freeman

Rating: 5 stars

Recently, this book was available only for $500 or $700. While I have fond memories of this book, I would not pay that much for it...at least I don't think I would... Instead, my kids and I borrow it from the library a few times a year and I remember happily how much I loved it as a kid. I also just saw that this book is reissued and available through a bunch of retailers, including Target, for a much better price: $6.99. I'm glad that Dandelion will be a favorite lion for kids of today's generation, too!

I'm not sure why Corduroy is considered Don Freeman's best work.  Sure, Corduroy is a cute little bear that takes a nice imaginary hike through the department store and finds his way to a little girl's heart.  But what's the point?  Dandelion has such a wonderful point: Be yourself!  Wouldn't the world be such a different place if kids learned that at age 3, rather than age 30, or 40, or 50?

In case you're not familiar with the book or in case you've not read it in a few decades, Dandelion is a dapper little lion who gets a classy invitation to a "taffy and tea" party from his pal, Jennifer Giraffe.  He's so excited about the party that he gets his hair done in a spiffy new style (super curly, check out the picture) and buys a dapper new outfit to match.  He looks so unlike himself that Jennifer Giraffe doesn't recognize him and shuts the door in his face upon his arrival.  After a short and tumultuous rain storm that unfurls his curls, soaks his sweater, and wilts his first bouquet of dandelions, he tries again.  He finds a new bouquet of dandelions, knocks on the door, and laughs heartily at himself (another great lesson within the book) when Jennifer tells him of the "silly looking lion" that knocked on his door earlier.

Lorelei loves this book, which makes me happy because I loved this book as a child.  It is such a simple story, but has a sweet message and great illustrations, too.  A winner of a book!

Giraffes Can't Dance by Giles Andreae

Giraffes Can't Dance by Giles Andreae, illustrated by Guy Parker-Rees

Rating: 5 stars

I think that within every children's library there should be a couple of books that are fail-proof giggle-makers or pick-me-uppers.  They should be reserved for those afternoons or late mornings...or even early mornings!...when everyone just needs a good laugh.  The Baby Beebee Bird is one of my family's personal favorites when a mood needs to be lifted, but Giraffes Can't Dance is also in that category.  I'm always looking for more books that make my kids giggle and me care less about the mess around my house--please suggest a few to our little family!

It's like "Lucky" by Jason Mraz; you can't help but smile or tap your foot.  Maybe you don't have days where bedtime seems like two light years away...

So here's the gist of the book: Gerald the giraffe wants to participate in a jungle dance-off but he's clumsy with four left feet.  Everybody laughs at his feeble attempts, so he shuffles away feeling low as can be.  And then he meets a cricket that chirps some wise words: "Sometimes when you're different, you just need a different song!"  So he listens to the music from the jungle itself--the leaves, the trees, the birds, the bugs--and becomes the best dancer of them all.  And he doesn't gloat about it--he's just finally happy with himself.  I like that part best.

This is a great, great read-aloud book that totally lifts me up from almost any pity party I am silly enough to dwell in for more than 4.7 minutes. 

Curious George Rides a Bike by H.A. Rey

Curious George Rides a Bike by H.A. Rey

Rating: 2 stars

I'm all for old books, whether they are deemed classics or not.  But please don't check this book out.  If you do, your child will learn to:

1.  Play by herself in the front yard, near the street.

2.  Do "tricks" on a bike, such as riding without hands, riding on just the back wheel, and riding backwards.

3.  Go out into the street when the front yard/sidewalk got boring.

4.  Take a bag of newspapers from a stranger, a random paper boy, who wants help delivering papers (obviously George doesn't live in post-9/11 Washington DC where there'd be a bomb squad in seconds).

5.  Stop delivering said newspapers and make boats with the neighborhood's newspapers.

6.  Play near water by herself.

7.  Ride without a helmet (should have mentioned that first) and thus hit her head on a rock when front wheel hits a big one.

8.  Accept an invitation from TWO male strangers and GET INTO THEIR CAR to perform at a circus.

I am not making any of this up!  Go check out the book if you think I'm lying!  Obviously, the world was a little different, for both kids and monkey-pets, when the book was written in 1952.  There are so many incredible books that were written before 2000; this is not one of them.  Should I request that it be banned from our local library?  I guess not.

Where do your kids read?

This is an audience participation one!  Where do you read to your kids?  Where do your kids read?  Here are some of our favorite places, with pictures to go along...

on the bottom step (random!)

on top of the toy box

at the table while Mommy writes

and (blessedly) in the car.

I'm pretty limited to a few places where I read to them, though.  Ben has just started sitting through one book, and when he's extra tired he'll sit through two or three while sitting in my lap, squished up next to his beloved big sister.  I read to them while they are eating (when we're out, they usually ask me, "Mommy, can you grab a book?" and I have to explain that I really can't pull one out at Starbucks or Rio Grande) and before they nap/sleep.

Here's a picture of Grammy the Great reading during lunch.

Got any cool places that we can emulate?  Do your kids have any funny places they read?

Fireman Small by Wong Herbert Yee

Fireman Small by Wong Herbert Yee

Rating: 3.5 stars

So there's a new thing in our library: bean bag chairs.  Ben especially loves them!  I try and get the kids not to take a few steps back and jump into them; I do my best to express how they were purchased and placed for kids to sit and read.  They do that, sometimes, but it usually takes a few jumps for them to settle in between the beans.

What does this have to do with Fireman Small?  Well, the bean bags are placed not in the middle of the children's area, but on the outskirts, between John Segal (of Carrot Soup acclaim) and Paul Zelinsky (think the gorgeous The Wheels on the Bus).  The bean bags are right next to the Z section.

So we spend a lot of time at the end of the alphabet when the bean bags are available.  That's why and where we found the cute little series by Yee.  This is a long poem of a book about Fireman Small, the lone fireman in a small town.  He is trying to get to sleep but emergencies keep waking him up: a cat in a tree, a fire in town, and things of that nature.  Lorelei loves the poem, and Ben loves firetrucks, so it works for both of them.  As the bean bags were available on Tuesday afternoon when we popped into the library after nap time, we just got the next in the series.  I'll let you know how it is!

PS  I couldn't find an Amazon link for the book, so I put up a tape recording/book combo, definitely not what we checked out.  It seems that the book is not available to purchase.  (Oh by the way, if you buy books through my blog, I get a teensy-weensy commission, though you're not charged any extra.)

Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes

Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes

Rating: 4.5 stars

We love this book.  I mean, we LOVE this book.  Lorelei knows almost every word by heart, and the little illustrations--more like intricate sketches or doodles, really--captivate her.  She can stare at a page of this book for a few minutes, just studying it.

Chrysanthemum is a little white mouse who, in her parents eyes, "is absolutely perfect," so she must have an absolutely perfect name, too--thus this super long flower's name that I now know how to spell.  (Even before spellcheck, for all you sassy folk out there.)  She loves her name, too.  Until she starts school.  On the first day of school she realizes everyone has monosyllabic names like Gus or Sam or Max; hers "scarcely fits on her nametag."  (Lorelei will often tell a person that her name is Lorelei, and her name scarcely fits on a nametag.  It always makes grown ups' eyebrows rise and me chuckle.)  She feels pretty sorry for herself when her classmates ridicule her like all little kids--sigh--do.

And then the class meets Mrs Twinkle, the music teacher.  "Her voice was like something out of a dream, as was everything else about her."  The entire class is mesmerized by this "indescribable wonder"--I love when Kevin Henkes and other authors note little kids' naive and beautiful infatuations like this... 

Anyway, back to Chrysanthemum.

The students all giggle and laugh yet again at Chrysanthemum's name until Mrs Twinkle finds out about why they are laughing.  And then she tells him, simply: "My name is long.  My name would scarcely fit on a name tag.  I am named after a flower.  My name is Delphinium."  Of course, Chrysanthemum bursts with pride.  She actually "blooms" according to Henkes. 

This is definitely one of the most clever and witty children's books we've ever read.  And Henkes gets it almost totally right this time with his humor: the wittiness and cleverness is completely child appropriate (he loses me in Julius, Baby of the World).  You've got to read it to appreciate all the flower references sprinkled throughout the pages.  And note the two books her father is reading when she comes home from school, too.  I think my only hesitation is that it does open up the true side of school: the not-so-nice kids who make fun of their classmates just because they can.  I'm in denial that that sort of thing will happen to my kids at some point. 

On the flip side, I appreciate the book a little more because maybe Lorelei will be in a position to be one of the not-so-nice students, and maybe she'll remember Chrysanthemum and be empathetic and kind.  My fingers and toes are crossed!

Animal Numbers by Bert Kitchen

Animal Numbers by Bert Kitchen

Rating: 3 stars

Not surprisingly, Ben saw this at the library last week and just had to have it.  He's a fan of our two weimaraners (who, luckily, are big fans of him) so the Irish Setters on the cover grabbed his attention.  This is a gorgeous book, with only a few words on the first page that introduce the book--and explain that the numbers correspond with the number of babies each mother animal has surrounding her. 

No doubt, it is a gorgeous book.  Kitchen draws incredibly realistic but also super creative pictures for each number, often making the animal and the number work together.  For example, the three baby squirrels climb up the number "3" and the four baby woodpeckers nest within the triangle of the "4" while the mama pecks away into the "4."  Lorelei traces the large, bold numbers with her fingers (a good pre-writing activity, I think).

It's not meant to be read aloud to kids, I know, and that's how we use most books these days, so I can't wax poetic about the book.  My biggest question comes from the last page, where Kitchen promises to explain all the babies names.  But then he doesn't.  He does say that a baby kangaroo is called a joey and states an interesting and often random fact about each baby animal, but...  We information-seekers want to know what babies are called!  I want Lorelei and Ben to pass that pop quiz of life, or in their second grade class when they are asked to identify all these things. 

Maybe I'm getting a little ahead of myself and should just slooooooooooow down and enjoy the pictures of this book.  I'll do better at that sloooooooooooowing down thing.  Tomorrow. Or maybe next week.  Or next year?

I'm Mighty! by Kate & Jim McMullan

I'm Mighty! by Kate & Jim McMullan

Rating: 4.5 stars

Lots of people who know lots more than I do agree that some books are and should be written just to get kids interested in books.  You know, they don't teach very much but they are cute and funny and...well, they are sort of like a welcome mat to the wonderful world of books.

This is one of them.  This cute--well, he'd want me to say tough--little tugboat has more personality than I ever realized tugboats could have!  The text is bold and energetic, jumps around the pages, and invites the parent/caregiver/reader to use get in touch with their inner tugboat and half grunt, half shout the words as their little one/s check out the adorable illustrations.

Luckily, I am a total ham, which definitely helps Lorelei and Ben pay attention to books that I'm reading.  Let's just say that my inner tugboat (and, when I'm reading I'm Dirty!, my inner bull-dozer...we've not read I Stink! or I'm Bad! yet, but we I look forward to getting in touch with my inner garbage truck and inner dinosaur, respectively) is alive and well, and frequently cracks up everyone in the room. 

Including me. 

Ladybug Girl at the Beach

Ladybug Girl at the Beach by David Soman and Jacky Davis

Rating: 4 stars

We've fallen into the Ladybug Girl and Fancy Nancy series.  Help!

They are both wildly popular; I think each is okay.  I like Ladybug Girl a little more--she's more adventurous and independent and tough than Fancy Nancy seems to be.  We have read most of the Ladybug Girl series, but we've only read a few of the zillions of Fancy Nancy books.  When our first grade neighbor, someone Lorelei wholeheartedly adores, came off the school bus last week with a few Fancy Nancy books in her hands, Lorelei set her sight on reading all of them.  Oh my.

So, Ladybug Girl.

Ladybug Girl is a headstrong little girl with an older brother who usually doesn't pay much attention to her.  (He is not very kind to her; this is one my least favorite things about the series.)  Her best buddy is her basset hound, Bingo.  While she is brave and tough, her chutzpah sometimes borders on brattiness. 

But this book is one of my favorites, mostly because, as my sister put it, "It explains all the sensations of the beach."  Ladybug Girl is totally excited to be at the beach and she just knows that she's going to love it, but...she didn't realize how big and scary the ocean would be once you got up close to it.  So she does everything except go into the ocean--dig sand castles, fly a kite, run around. 

She carefully tries to go in, but the ocean almost pushes her over, and then nearly drags her in after planting her ankles into the soft sand.  If you've ever stood in front of the ocean as a wave washes in, and then out, you know exactly what she's talking about.  Which is kind of fun, especially for Lorelei who is also afraid of the ocean.  (On her first trip she wouldn't even step onto the sand.  We could have walked a mile away from her and Ben, and when we returned they both would have been sitting directly on the towel, feet as far away from the edge as possible!)  By the end, Ladybug Girl, who seems about 4 years old, wades into the water all by herself.  Hooray!

I plan on taking this book with us (along with a few dozen others, of course) when we head to the beach this fall.

Building A House by Byron Barton

Building A House by Byron Barton

Rating: 4.5 stars

This is one of those let's-connect-it-to-real-life books for us.  There's a house that's being built down the road, and we like to drive by slooooooooooooowly to check out what's being done.  Since this was one of the first books we checked out at the library many months ago, Lorelei had a good idea of what was happening each time we drove by. 

A big machine digs a hole.  Check!  Concrete is poured in.  Check!  Builders hammer and saw.  Check!  A cement mixer pours cement!  Check.

You get the idea.  I'm tempted to stop by the construction site and have a picnic to let the kids watch, but I'm not bold enough.  Yet.  Maybe when Ben is old enough to realize the words "Be careful!" 

A simple book, and one that provides the foundation for knowing how a house is built.  Three cheers for the simplicity of Byron Barton!

In the Town All Year 'Round by Rotraut Susanne Berner

In the Town All Year 'Round by Rotraut Susanne Berner

Rating: 5 look-and-find stars

This past April our family headed to the beach in North Carolina, a five-ish hour drive from our home in Great Falls.  I took 34 books for our kids.  I'm not kidding.  My husband even told me "Let's pack light."  So I did.  Knowing that there would be a washing machine readily available to wash our clothes every night if I wanted, I packed just two or three outfits for all of us.  Knowing that there would be a kitchen full of pots, pans, and Tupperware, I packed just a few toys and puzzles for Lorelei and Ben.

But books?  Who can skimp on books?  I actually hid them in each bag so that Jonathan wouldn't find them.  I put four or five bedtime books in the clothes bag for the kids, and another couple in our bag.  I had a book bag for the ride down there, and then had another book bag for the ride back.  I stuffed a few books under each child's car seat.  I cracked myself up!  I earned a "look" from my husband, which of course made me chuckle a bit.

For the record, we did read all of them many, many times.

But for this past weekend's trip to St Louis to visit my husband's family, we took just one.  This one. 

(Ok, I cannot tell a lie.  We packed two, In the Town All Year 'Round and Planes by Byron Barton that we had checked out from the library so we could read it on the plane.  Then we bought two at the airport's bookstore: Lorelei chose Ladybug Girl at the Beach and Ben chose Five Little Monkeys Wash the Car.)

Anyway, back to this great book.  It's a look-and-find, and is organized by seasons.  There are seven huge, gorgeous pages chock full of little details for each season, and the scenes are the same for each season.  They are, of course, altered according to what is happening in each season.  For example, in the town square picture in Winter, everything is decorated for Christmas; in Spring there's a farmer's market and flowers everywhere; in Summer there are picnics and a flea market with a storm brewing overhead; and in Fall leaves are streaming throughout the picture and geese are flying South.  You get the idea.

Lorelei received the book for her birthday, and, after she and Ben read through it once (and I snapped the picture above) I promptly tucked it away for the airplane ride.  We looked at it for about 30 minutes straight on the flight there and on the flight back, which is pretty good for a 3 year old and a little 19 month old!  Because Ben isn't talking just yet, he can point to things when you ask him to identify stuff.  And there are plenty of hot air balloons, helicopters, tractors, and airplanes--just a few of his favorite things!

We LOVE this book.  Is it bad if I hide it away until we go on our next airplane ride?

Wow! America! by Robert Neubecker

Wow! America! by Robert Neubecker

Rating: 5 patriotic stars

Confession: I'm an Army brat.  Because of that, and because I lived abroad for several years as an adult, I really love and appreciate America.  And I've been to 47 of the 50 states. (Rhode Island, Arkansas, and Alaska, in case you're wondering.)  And when I was little, my parents made the wise decision to really focus on discovering our own country.  When we moved to a new place, my parents would make a point to visit lots of touristy places as well as plenty of out-of-the-way spots.  That meant that when we lived in Hawaii Dad would drag us to Shark's Cove instead of just going to Barber's Point where all our friends would be.  And when we did go on a vacation that didn't involve visiting family back in Erie, Pennsylvania, we went somewhere amazing in this great country. 

And we drove to nearly all of our destinations (except in Hawaii, where inter-island flights called "hops" were the way to go).  Our first stop?  A bookstore.  Hmmm...I was a reader as a child and now my children are readers...

We came across Wow! School! last week at the library; a smart librarian had propped it up on top of the stacks and we picked it up and shoved it in our overflowing, very heavy library bag.  All three of us fell in love with it, especially because Lorelei will start --gasp!-- preschool in the fall.  I'll review that book later...  We ordered Wow! America! the next day and picked it up this morning (when the sitter didn't show up.  Grrr). 

I am in love, love, love with this book!  This is one we might have to buy.  Maybe I'll just suggest to the grandparents that this is a great book...hint, hint... Enter sheepish grin here.

Izzy, the star of all the books in this series (Wow! City! is next on our list), is in all the pages, with her yellow Labrador, too.  And in this book, her little sister Jo.  They scamper across the country.  For me, it was like a journey into my childhood--we moved around a whole lot, plus my husband's from Louisiana and lived in New York City for almost a decade.  So the New Orleans page and the New York page came with an extra story with them.  Then the Grand Canyon, which I've never seen.  It opens up to a third page!  And the cowboys page...well, I do love me a good cowboy book, and I'll take just one page if that's all I'm given.  And the Washington, DC, one is great because we live nearby and my husband works even nearer by. 

And, coincidentally, we leave for Missouri tomorrow, so the pages for the Mississippi River were appreciated and timely.  Finally, my husband and I are going on a leaving-the-kids-with-Grammy trip to the Rocky Mountains, so...wouldn't you know it?  There's a page for the Rocky Mountains!  I couldn't have asked for a better display of the U.S.  Bravo, Neubecker, and thank you for this great one.  I hope more people find it and appreciate it as much as we do.

I just took a bunch of pictures to let you see the great illustrations for yourself.  It is a really great book, with a lot going on, with minimal words so kids like Lorelei who are learning to read can focus on just a few at a time.  Go buy it!  Go check it out!  Trust me! 

10 Minutes Till Bedtime! by Peggy Rathmann

10 Minutes Till Bedtime! by Peggy Rathmann

Rating: 3.5 stars

You'd think this would be a bedtime book by the title, but the illustrations are much too exciting for that. 

The little boy in the picture is about to go to sleep; his father yells how many minutes to go from the next room, where he's reading the newspaper with his feet up.  While he counts down, there's a sudden and inexplicable hamster party.  Hamsters parade along the sidewalk into the little boy's house, to his bedroom, and even to his bathroom.  They turn his bathtime into a pool party!  He plays with them, reads to them, and marvels at them until his eyes are too droopy to stay open, and then they all leave.

There is so much going on in each picture that this book is one we rarely read together.  Instead, I hide it until we go on a long car trip or on an airplane.  In the picture, Lorelei studies each picture carefully on our way up to Baltimore yesterday.  She, and even Ben to a lesser extent, is just amazed at all the activity in the book.  The counting is a fun addition; 1 to 10 is no problem, so she traces them with her finger as something extra to do. 

And--look closely at the picture--do you see a screen in our car?  Nope.  That's right: Let's put our hands together for keeping TVs out of cars so that our kids actually (are you sitting down?) look out the window and talk with us while we travel and read a whole lot and then read a whole lot more.

A better travel book than a bedtime book!  A good one to pick up before your next journey.

A Good Night Walk by Elisha Cooper

A Good Night Walk by Elisha Cooper

Rating: 4 stars

Elisha Cooper is quickly becoming one of my favorite illustrators.  His images seem to be sketched quickly but the people seem to move, the trees seem to sway, and the animals seem to breathe.  My husband really likes Farm and Beach, though I think they are beyond even Lorelei's impressive attention span; I think they are the segue way to chapter books they are so long!  Those books are DK-like in their details and information, but A Good Night Walk is a great bedtime book.

Maybe because we live in the woods, the neighborhood setting of this book makes Lorelei more interested in it.  On our night walks, we see fireflies and hear owls and listen to the rustling leaves and not much else.  While I wouldn't change that, there is something amazingly and magically alluring about Cooper's retro drawings that make me pine for a neighborhood like those in his pictures.  The author takes a walk, presumably with his child/ren, along a sidewalk, where screen doors open and close, with smells of apple pie and sounds of dogs barking.  He simply describes what he sees, nothing more, nothing less.  Friendly waves, chasing squirrels, a pick-up game of baseball....somehow I think of my parents' hometown of Erie, Pennsylvania.  His images are just nostalgic and beautiful.

I'm too young to appreciate the difficulty of the late 1940s, and early 1950s when my grandparents began to raise their children.  I know there were plenty.  But they were surrounded by friends and family--and all of their lives were intertwined in those apple pies and baseball games and picnics. 

Somehow Elisha Cooper with his slow words, "Let's take a walk, a walk at night, and see what there is to see" sticks in Lorelei's and my imagination.  For different reasons, but...that's what makes this a really good book.