New Non-Fiction Picture Books

Jess Keating and Melissa Stewart are two of the best writers of non-fiction for kids. You can check out more of their books here.

Cute As An Axolotl is the latest of Jess Keating's The World of Weird Animals series. An Axolotl is a salamander. Those feathery branches on the side of its head are gills. Cute as they are, they are a critically endangered species. Some of the other cute animals in this book are the Fairy Penguin, Pangolin, Pygmy Hippopotamus, Dwarf Flying Squirrel and Fennec Fox. Also included is a two page spread on the science of Cute and a glossary. Illustrations are by David DeGrand. The previous books in the series have been a big hit with the second graders I work with. The Sonoma County Library has six copies.

Pipsqueaks, Slowpokes, and Stinkers is Melissa Stewart's latest picture book. It is illustrated by Stephanie Laberis. This book is about the unsung underdogs of the animal world. What may be perceived as weaknesses may actually help these animals survive in an eat-or-be-eaten world. Some sleep most of the day away. How does that help them survive? Because they rest so much they don't need as much food to sustain themselves. Twelve animals are profiled and fit into one of the categories in the book's title. At the end of the book is a two page spread with more information on each animal. The Sonoma County Library has five copies.

Expository Non-Fiction Picture Books

What is expository non-fiction? The simple answer is in the words of Joe Friday, "Just the facts". Some kids really want to learn about a subject; they are not interested in a story about their favored topic, but facts. Years ago, I had a second grade student who knew more about black holes that 99% of adults who were not astronomers. All he wanted was more pieces of data to build his understanding of what a black hole is and how it is formed. He was willing to learn to read anything that would further his understanding. In a guest post from author Melissa Stewart, in a School Library Journal blog, there is a much clearer explanation and some interesting research about how many students are interested in expository non-fiction.

Let's take a look at some recent books in this category, the first by Melissa Stewart Can an Aardvark Bark?, illustrated by Steve Jenkins. The simple answer to the title question is no, but it does grunt. What other animals grunt? River otters, Hamadryas Baboons, white tailed deer and oyster toadfish, each species grunts mean something different. Can a seal squeal? No but it can bark and so can capybara, barking tree frog, common barking geckos and woodchucks. To the caybara, it is a warning, to the tree frog it is a mating call, the gecko uses a bark to let other geckos know where he is and woodchucks bark when they are fighting with one another. Other sounds explored that animals use to communicate include squeal, whine, growl, bellow and laugh.

The Sonoma County Library has three copies.


Jess Keating is another author who known for her expository fiction. Pink Is For Blobfish is an exploration of pink animals. Each two page spread introduces a pink toned animal with a picture, facts such as species name, size, diet, habitat, predators and threats. Plus an interesting fact in cartoon form about each animal. Seventeen perfectly pink animals are featured. A map showing where you can find them, a glossary and where to find out more is included at the end of the book. The illustrator is David DeGrand.

The Sonoma County Library has one copy. 

Jess Keating and David DeGrand have paired up for another book What Makes A Monster? The unifying idea this time is exploring animals who look like monsters or act like monsters. The Aye-Aye's witch like claws are only dangerous to bugs. A legend in Madagascar says a sighting of one of these lemurs is a prediction of death. Laid out like the blobfish book, this book features fifteen animals and one fungus. The last animal can be found in every house. The end of the book pairs famous monsters with animals in the book like Dracula and the vampire bat and a glossary of useful words.

They All Saw A Cat

Since I tutor first graders in reading, I am always looking for books with engaging stories, few words, lots of repetition and large, widely spaced text. They All Saw A Cat  by Brendan Wenzel delivers.

We have one cat and many observers: a child sees a friendly, smiling cat; the dog, a more sinister, unfriendly cat and the mouse a ferocious monster cat. A fish sees the cat through a watery filter, the bee's compound eyes see a pointillist cat and a skunk sees a grey-toned cat. Sometimes what an animal sees is due to perspective: a bird sees a different cat than a flea, worm or a bat. What does the cat see when she looks in a pond?

Each of Brendan Wenzel's illustrations perfectly illustrates what each of the observers see. There is no need for kids to decode words like ferocious, pointillist or sinister. The picture tells the story. There is a good deal of Caldecott buzz about this book right now.

The Sonoma County Library has seven copies. The AR level is 1.9.

Happy National Dog Day

It is no secret that this blog likes dogs, one of the most accessed posts is Dogs at the Book Fair. Over the years we have accumulated quite a collection of books about dogs and even one that is narrated by a dog.

Gaston by Kelly DiPucchio and illustrated by Caldecott Honor recipient, Christian Robinson, features two dog families who meet in the park, a family of poodles who have a French bulldog member and a family of French bulldogs who have a poodle member. Clearly, there has been a mistake. A switch is made, can you guess how it turns out? The book is worth reading if only to read the the girl poodle names out loud: Fi-Fi, Foo-Foo and Ooh-La-La in your very best French accent. The Sonoma County Library has nine copies and the AR is 2.8.

I'm My Own Dog is written and illustrated by Caldecott Honor winner, David Ezra Stein. Our hero declares that, "I'm my own dog. No one owns me. I own myself." He takes care of everything he needs except for a little place on his back that needs a scratch that he can't reach.  A little guy scratches his back then follows him home. What is a dog to do but let him stay. He trains the little guy and soon they become best friends. The Sonoma County Library has eight copies and the AR is 1.5.

 Mrs. Birdhead has had it with Bobo's bad behavior in How To Be A Good Dog  by Gail Page. She sends him to the dog house. But Cat misses Bobo. Armed with a dog training manual, Cat  teaches Bobo to shake, fetch, heel, lie down, roll over and stay. All goes well until Mrs. Birdhead comes home from the grocery store. How does Bobo get back in her good graces? The Sonoma County Library has one copy and the AR is 1.4.

Homer by Elisha Cooper is a celebration of old dogs. Homer's family is at the beach house. does he want to play chase with the other dogs? No, sitting on the porch is fine. He also declines to explore the field, go to the beach and swim in the waves. Eventually everyone comes back and joins him on the porch and shares their adventures. Does he need anything? No he has everything he needs, he has his family. We have an old dog much like Homer, this story rings true. The Sonoma County Library has eleven copies and the AR is 1.8.

Percy loves puddles of all kinds but the one he loves most of all does not love him back because it is occupied by Mama Pig and her piglets. A big storm comes and a tree falls in the perfect puddle scattering Mama and her piglets. One is missing. Where could she be? Percy finds her and now the perfect puddle loves him back. The rhyming in this book is a great vocabulary builder.
Sonoma County Library has one copy and the AR is 2.4.

 A few more dog books reviewed over the years:

An easy reader, A Dog Is a Dog by Stephen Shaskan.

Atticus, the aforementioned dog narrator knows what is going on, his co-narrator, Ben, has no clue in Road Trip by Gary and Jim Paulsen.

Pug and Other Animal Poetry by Valerie Worth and illustrated by Stephan Jenkins is a collection of eighteen short poems about animal behavior.

Since National Dog Day is a celebration of rescue, it is only fitting that Trouper by Meg Kearney is included.

One more link from Brightly, 21 Woof-tastic Children's Books About Dogs. Enjoy!

Picture Book Gift Ideas

2014 saw several  new picture books aimed at kids 4-7 years old by some honored picture book authors. The author and illustrator of a 2013 Caldecott Honor book, Extra Yarn, Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen have teamed up again on Sam & Dave Dig A Hole. A simple story about two boys digging a hole to look for something spectacular.   Some kids back in the olden days amused themselves during long summer days by digging holes either to bury or look for treasure or for the more ambitious, to dig their way to the other side of the world. While the story is told pretty straight, Jon Klassen’s illustrations are humorous. We can see what Sam and Dave cannot. Just as they are getting close to finding something, they change course. Fortunately, their dogs does dig his way to a spectacular find. The boys eventually fall down the hole and come out the other side. They decide that is a pretty spectacular way to spend the day.  The AR is 1.9.

Mac Barnett came out with another book this year  illustrated by Jen Corace. Telephone is a play on that  another amusement from the olden days. One person whispers something to another, that person whispers what he heard to the next person and the last person who hears it repeats the message aloud. More often than not, it bears little relationship to the original. The whole story takes place on a telephone wire, the characters are birds. Peter’s mother tells a cardinal carrying a baseball bat  “Tell Peter: Fly home for dinner”. The cardinal tells a flyboy, “Tell Peter: Hit pop flies and homers”. Flyboy passes his version to the next bird on the wire and so on. Each bird adds a twist to the message until finally a very drenched bird relays a message that combines parts of all the versions to a wise looking owl who happens to be sitting near Peter on the wire. The owl thinks about what he just heard and says to Peter, “Your Mom says fly home for dinner”.

 

Tom Lichtenheld, illustrator of Exclamation Mark, has teamed up with Richard T Morris on This Is A Moose.

An unseen director is making a wildlife movie about a moose. Take one: the star of the movie wants to be an astronaut.  This will not do. The director yells, “Cut!” and says matter of factually that a moose cannot be an astronaut. Take two is interrupted by the star’s grandmother (yeah grandmas!). She wanted to be a La Crosse goalie and don’t tell her a moose can’t be one or you have a fight on your hands. Take three is interrupted by a  Regal Giraffe who always wanted to be a doctor. The director dismisses the giraffe because this is a woodland movie not a safari movie. At this point Grandma and Regal Giraffe take matters into their own hands and launch Moose into space. The director goes into a tirade about how that cannot happen because this is a movie about a moose doing moose things. Nonetheless the Moose is in outer space. Finally, we see the director, who happens to be a duck, yelling, “will somebody please find me an animal that acts like it’s supposed to!!”  We see the director pausing to  think and coming to the realization that if a duck can be a director then a moose can be an astronaut . The new movie is “This is an Astronaut” on location on the moon.

Great read-a-loud book. The AR is 1.9.

Katherine Applegate, the winner of the 2013 Newbery Medal for The One And Only Ivan, has written a picture book about the real Ivan called Ivan: The Remarkable True Story of the Shopping Mall Gorilla. The book is beautifully illustrated by G. Brian Karas.

The story tells of Ivan’s birth in a tropical forest in Central Africa, his capture by poachers and his arrival in Tacoma, Washington. He was raised like a human child for three years until he became too big.  Then a cage in the shopping mall became his new home. He lived in that cage for 27 years without the company of another gorilla. Some people thought Ivan should have a better life. After letters, petitions and protests it was arranged to transfer Ivan to Zoo Atlanta. There he lived out his days in “a place with trees and grass and other gorillas”. The AR is 3.7.

Magazines for Kids

Magazines are a great way to get your kids interested in reading. Erica from the What Do We Do All Day blog has done the hard work of rounding up a list of 16 magazines for  preschool and grade-school aged kids. Our family has had experience with the Ranger Rick (and the preschool, My Big Backyard now called Ranger Rick, Jr.) and Highlights for Kids. One that I have never seen before is Ask, a science magazine for kids 7-9 or 10. For older kids, they publish Odyssey.

Kids love to get mail so magazines make great birthday or holiday gifts, especially since the gift lasts the length of the subscription.

Trouper

Trouper is a novel in verse told by a three legged dog who wanders the streets with other homeless dogs looking for food wherever they can find it. One day, a man lures them into his truck  with a huge steak and takes  them to a shelter. Trouper watches as each of his friends is adopted, finally, he is the only one left.  His heart is a cold heartless night until a  young boy comes  to the shelter and takes Trouper home. The last page should bring a tear to your eye.

Based on the real story of her own rescue dog, Trouper, Meg Kearney wrote a poem about the life she imagined he had before she adopted him. Caldecott Honor medalist, E. B. Lewis used the real Trouper as the model for his paintings

Meg Kearney did a video on You Tube about the real Trouper. The book was published at the end of October, so it is not yet at the Sonoma County or Yulupa libraries, but it is available from Scholastic.

Lulu and the Dog from the Sea

Seven-year old Lulu loves animals and she has lots of pets. Her mother says, “The more the merrier! As long as Lulu cleans up after them!” She has two guinea pigs, four rabbits, one parrot, one hamster, lots of goldfish and an old dog named Sam. Lulu’s best friend and cousin, Mellie, is going on vacation to the beach with Lulu and her family. At the beach house, the family is warned about a dog from the sea who is stealing food wherever he can find it. Right away Lulu wants to know more about the “dog from the sea” and sets out to find out. Lulu and then Mellie and eventually, even Lulu’s parents gain the dog’s trust. In the end, the dog from the sea comes to the rescue of Lulu and Mellie.

 

Lulu and the Dog from the Sea by Hilary McKay is the second in a series of books about Lulu and her love for animals. I found out about the first book, Lulu and the Duck in the Park, from Anita Silvey’s Children's Book-A-Day Almanac. She had high praise for the first book but when I found a book about a dog, I had to go with that one. A third book, Lulu and the Cat in the Bag is going to be published on September 1, 2013. All the books are illustrated by Pricilla Lamont.

The Accelerated Reader rating is 4.7, but the book is short (108 pages) and the story is straight forward. These books would be great for kids who are reading above grade level at a young age or as read-a-loud books. There are plenty of issues to discuss about animal welfare.

There are many copies of this book in the Sonoma County Library.  The book is also available from Scholastic.

Back Seat Book Club The One And Only Ivan

June’s  Back Seat Book Club discussion with author Katherine Applegate about The One And Only Ivan aired today on NPR. You can listen to it here. The July selection is Glory Be by Augusta Scattergood. It has been on my to read list for months. Better get cracking!

A Dog Is A Dog

A Dog Is A Dog, a picture book written and illustrated by Stephen Shaskan, is  lively, easy to read verse and guaranteed to make your child laugh. A dog is a dog, right? Or is he a cat, a squid or a moose? A first grader giggled her way through this book needing help with only one word, naughty.

The Sonoma County Library has a few copies.

Pug and Other Animal Poems

Never wanting to rush anything, I have waited until the very last day of April to celebrate National Poetry Month. Pug and Other Animal Poems is a collection of short poems by Valerie Worth and illustrated by Steve Jenkins. This is the second posthumous collection of Valerie Worth’s animal poetry. She wrote poems  about an elusive  fox, a cicada metamorphosis and toads in window wells. As well as poems about geese leaving for the winter and returning in the spring, a rat’s domain and pugs who look a lot like people. Each poem captures something about the animal that is unique. They are simple and accessible for children of all ages.

Steve Jenkins’ collage artwork beautifully illustrates each poem. Jenkins won a Caldecott Honor  for What Do You Do With A Tail Like This? He also has an interesting website. He takes you through the process of creating a book from concept to completion. He has written and illustrated numerous non-fiction books for children.

The Sonoma County Library has a few copies.

That Is NOT a Good Idea!

The prolific Mo Willems is back with a new picture book that comes with its own Greek chorus. That Is NOT a Good Idea! is a tale about a fox, a plump goose and dinner. Fox spies Goose. Like in a silent movie, the next two pages is text that says “What luck!” “Dinner!” Fox asks goose if she would like to go for a stroll. She says yes. Immediately, a gosling pops up to say, “That is NOT a good idea!” He invites her to continue the walk in the deep, dark woods. Now two goslings pop up to say, “That is REALLY NOT a good idea!” At each point in the story, one more gosling appears and one more REALLY is added to the chorus. The ending will surprise and delight the reader. It is a great book to read aloud, especially if you have a Greek chorus of your own.

The book was just published yesterday, April 23, 2013. The Sonoma County Library is waiting for several copies to arrive. A cute preview of the book is on YouTube.

Two out of two first graders who read this book love it!  One loved it so much, he read it twice.

The Puppy Place Guide to Puppies

Ellen Miles has written a companion guide to her hugely popular The Puppy Place series about the Peterson family who rescue and foster homeless dogs. Her guide includes chapters on finding the right dog for your family and where to find one, getting ready for the new puppy or dog and meeting your new friend’s basic needs of food, water, exercise and housetraining. There is a very good chapter on making it easy for your dog to be a good dog. She talks about using positive reinforcement instead of punishment: reward the good, ignore the bad. Instructions are given to teach your dog to SIT as well as instructions to teach your dog a simple trick. She includes a chapter on the importance of regular veterinary visits and what to ask the  vet. The chapter called Fun, Loving and Understanding includes a graphic called “ How to Speak Dog”. One of the main ways dogs communicate is with body language. Ellen Miles has a handy, dandy visual guide. The final chapter deals with the unexpected: a lost dog and death. Interspersed throughout the book are little vignettes from many of her Puppy Place books.

There is plenty of good information aimed at second to fourth graders and some good reminders for their parents, too.

This is another book that according to Amazon has a publication date in the future (April 1, 2013), so as of today the libraries do not have copies. It is available at the Yulupa Book Fair or online until March 17th at Scholastic/bvusd.

Weird But True!

You haven’t lived until you have been followed around by a kid carrying a Weird But True book asking repeatedly, “did you know …?” The books are based on the National Geographic Kids feature of the same name. Did you know that an ostrich can run as fast a race horse? Or that a 300 year old hurricane on Jupiter is still going strong? Or that cold water weighs more than hot water? Did you know that Antarctica is a desert? Or that you breathe in 2,000 gallons of air each day? If you don’t, prepare to be enlightened!

There are five books in this series and an Ultimate Weird But True with a thousand outrageous facts. The Sonoma County Library has a few copies of the Ultimate Weird But True. The iTunes store has a free app called Weird But True for the  iPad, iPod touch and iPhone. If you want to see more than the dozen free facts, you will have to pay $.99 each for the first three packs  or $1.99 for the mega pack.

Yulupa School will be having a Scholastic Book Fair March 4 thru 8. There are usually Weird But True books available at the book fair.

Interrupting Chicken

Caldecott Honor Book Interrupting Chicken by David Ezra Stein is the perfect book for trying Mo Willem’s first secret for raising a reader. "Be ridiculous when you read together. Make loud noises and jump around. If your child sees that you're enjoying the book, she will think reading is cool.”

The Little Red Chicken wants Papa to read her a bedtime story. He says he will but she must not interrupt the story. Papa starts to read Chicken Hansel and Gretel. The children find a house made of candy in the woods and start to nibble on it. An old woman comes out and invites them inside, as they were about to go in a little red chicken jumps into the story and says, “Don’t go in, she’s a witch!” So Hansel and Gretel didn’t. The end! After another admonishment to not interrupt, Papa starts to read Chicken, Little Red Riding Hood. The story ends quickly when a little red chicken jumps in and says “Don’t talk to strangers!”  Chicken Little ends quickly when a little red chicken jumps into the story to say, “Don’t panic! It was just an acorn”. The weary Papa is out of stories, so he tells Chicken to write her own. She writes a story about a chicken who is putting her Papa to bed. Her story is interrupted by Papa’s snores.

As you can see there is lots of room for dramatic interpretation in this story, whether it is read by a parent or a child. The Sonoma County Library has many copies and the Yulupa Library has 2 copies. The grade level equivalent is 2.2.

Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs

Mo Willems’ books are a favorites with my grandchildren.  This book  is a rather twisted, but hilarious retelling of the Goldilocks and the Three Bears story. It seems that the three dinosaurs are very hungry so they make up some chocolate pudding at three different temperatures, but decide to leave to go …uhhh…someplace else. The three dinosaurs go someplace else and were definitely not waiting for an unsuspecting kid to come by. Very soon a poorly supervised little girl named Goldilocks entered the dinosaur's house and ate all three bowls of pudding. The story proceeds with the dinosaurs hoping to return to find a chocolate-filled-little-girl-bonbon (which are totally not a dinosaur’s favorite treat in the whole wide world). Goldilocks finally catches a clue that she is not at the three bears house when all the chairs are too tall and all the beds are too big and escapes out the back door just as the dinosaurs return home.

The Sonoma County Library has several copies. As an added bonus read Mo Willems’ Secrets for Raising a Reader. The interest level for this book is preschool to third grade.

Jackie Urbanovic and Max

When my children were young, in the seventies and early eighties, there was a trend in children’s books toward ‘learning life lessons’. They tended to be a little earnest; a little humor would have gone a long way to have made these books more readable. Jackie Urbanovic has figured out how to write funny books that just might offer a little insight into life.

Duck at the Door was the first of her books about Irene and her menagerie. One winter night a very cold duck named Max knocks on Irene’s door. He is invited to stay and he becomes a bit of a pest; he cooks meals no one likes and  he hogs the remote. But by springtime, when Max leaves to join his flock, all the animals  find that life is a bit boring and now they can’t wait for Max’s return in the fall.

The Sonoma County Library has several copies. The Yulupa Library also has a couple of copies. The reading grade level is 1.6.

The next book in the series is Duck Soup. Max decides to create his own soup recipe. He is adding ingredients and decides that chives are just what the soup needs, so he heads out to the garden to pick the herb. As he leaves, Dakota, brody and Bebe enter the kitchen looking for Max. Dakota sees a feather in the soup and decides that Max fell into the pot. Chaos ensues. Max returns to find his soup destroyed but his friends elated that he was not duck soup.

The Sonoma County Library and Yulupa Library have this book. The grade reading level is 1.4.

One day a very large alligator knocks on Irene’s door. He is fleeing a zoo detective because he mistakenly ate someone’s pet. “Please don’t eat us! everyone screams. But Max remembers what it was to be in trouble and alone, so he decides to help Harold, the alligator. He pleads with Irene to rescue Harold like she rescued him. Harold assures everyone that he is not dangerous. They decide to hide the alligator from the zoo detective. Again chaos ensues. It turns out that  Harold ate a HOT dog not a PET dog and the detective comes to bring the alligator back to his home.

The Sonoma County Library and the Yulupa Library have copies of this book. The reading grade level is 1.6.

The fourth book in the series is Sitting Duck. Brody’s niece, Anabel, is coming to visit. Max agrees to help babysit because, “How much trouble could a puppy get into anyway?” Most of the animals, disagreeing with Max, flee. Anabel arrives. Chaos ensues. Exhausted, Brody falls asleep. Anabel asks Uncle Maxie to take her outside. He tries to interest her in the tire swing and the swimming pool. She doesn’t like either one but she spies a trampoline. That is perfect. Anabel jumps so high she gets caught in a tree. Chaos ensues. Anabel is saved when all the animals help to get her out of the tree.

The Sonoma County Library and the Yulupa Library have this book. The reading grade level is 2.0.

I have used these books with my Schools of Hope students. They love them. There is a bit of the Marx Brothers about these books that I don’t think is accidental.

The One And Only Ivan

Ivan is a lowland gorilla. His habitat has glass walls on three sides and a mural of a “waterfall without water and flowers without scent and trees without roots” on the fourth wall. It is located in the Exit 8 Big Top Mall and Video Arcade on I95. His animal friends are are Stella, an elephant and Bob a dog who “belongs to no one”. Ivan, like Julia, the daughter of the mall caretaker, is an artist.  He seldom thinks about his life before he came to the Exit 8 Mall until a new elephant named Ruby arrives.

The One and Only Ivan is written by Katherine Applegate and illustrated by Patricia Castelao.  This book has 304 pages, but the chapter are 1-2 pages long, double-spaced and many have just a few words on the page. Ivan says “humans waste words”. The format of this book would make it a wonderful, ‘you read to me, I’ll read to you’ book.

I loved this book. Ivan, Stella, Ruby, Bob and Julia are compelling characters. You will have lots of conversation about their story. The Sonoma County Library has several copies of this book.