Review of Sophie’s Squash, by Pat Zietlow Miller and Anne Wilsdorf

Contemporary, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

Sophie’s Squash

by Pat Zietlow Miller
illustrated by Anne Wilsdorf

Schwartz & Wade Books, New York, 2013. 36 pages.
Starred Review

Something about this quirky book completely won my heart. I mean, how could the author think of this? Turns out, it’s based on something her own daughter did – which makes sense, since no one could make this up. Thanks to Travis Jonker from 100 Scope Notes for bringing it to my attention!

Here’s how the book begins:

One bright fall day, Sophie chose a squash at the farmer’s market. Her parents planned to serve it for supper, but Sophie had other ideas.

It was just the right size to hold in her arms.
Just the right size to bounce on her knee.
Just the right size to love.
“I’m glad we met,” Sophie whispered. “Good friends are hard to find.”

At home, Sophie used markers to give her squash a face. Then she wrapped it in a blanket and rocked it to sleep.

When it was time to make supper, Sophie’s mother looked at the squash. She looked at Sophie.
“I call her Bernice,” Sophie said.
“I’ll call for a pizza,” said her mother.

From there, Sophie has an always-happy companion.

But this book is much more realistic than some others like Arnie the Doughnut. I love the portrayal of Sophie’s parents, with lines like, “Well, we did hope she’d love vegetables.” And “Why don’t we donate Bernice to the food pantry before she rots?”

Before long, Sophie’s father calls Bernice “a little blotchy,” but Sophie insists she only has freckles. Finally, Sophie takes Bernice to the farmer’s market to cheer her up and gets advice from a farmer. She makes Bernice a bed of soft soil for the winter – and there is the happiest of endings when Sophie discovers Bernice’s children and gets two new friends who are just the right size to love.

The pictures in this book are perfect. Imaginative Sophie with her perky pigtails goes through all the emotions of love and loss and new discovery.

This absolutely charming book is a completely new take on the classic story of Two Best Friends.

patzietlowmiller.com
randomhouse.com/kids

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Picture_Books/sophies_squash.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Review of Maude, The Not-So-Noticeable Shrimpton, by Lauren Child and Trisha Krauss

Delightfully Silly, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

Maude

The Not-So-Noticeable Shrimpton

by Lauren Child
illustrated by Trisha Krauss

Candlewick Press, 2013. First published in the United Kingdom in 2012. 32 pages.
Starred Review

Maude Shrimpton is part of a family who loves to be noticed. Each member of the Shrimpton family is “so talented, so eccentric, so larger than life . . . you just couldn’t miss them even if you wanted to.”

Well, each member — except Maude.

In all the pictures, Maude’s clothes blend in with whatever she’s standing in front of. (These are positively brilliant!) “When Maude crossed the street, she had to dodge cars.” We see her dress striped exactly like the crosswalk. “She moved so inconspicuously that when she performed in her school play, people thought she was part of the scenery.”

When Maude’s birthday approaches, all she wants, all she asks for, is a goldfish.

Her family, however, seizes on the “gold” part of that word — and gets her a tiger. They love strolling along the boulevard with a giant cat, making everyone stare.

However, when they run out of tiger food, well, it becomes apparent that “Sometimes, just sometimes, not being noticeable is the very best talent of all.”

Let’s just say that I will be posting this book on my “Someone Gets Eaten” Pinterest Board. (Why are picture books where someone gets eaten just so much fun?) I’m trying to decide if it’s too brutal for storytime, but I think I can get away with it at the family storytime. Any violence is off-page, and, after all, there’s that great message that sometimes it’s a good thing to be inconspicuous!

And it’s all magnificently carried out and just plain fun.

candlewick.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Picture_Books/maude.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Review of Giving Thanks, edited by Katherine Paterson

Children's Nonfiction Review, Picture Book Review, Poetry 0

Giving Thanks

Poems, Prayers, and Praise Songs of Thanksgiving

Edited and with reflections by Katherine Paterson
Illustrations by Pamela Dalton

Handprint Books (Chronicle), San Francisco, 2013. 53 pages.

This beautiful book is appropriate for children and adults, and is perfect as a way to celebrate Thanksgiving. I went through it slowly, reading a page a day as part of my devotional time. If I had kids living with me now, it would have been nice to read a page aloud at the dinner table.

What’s included are prayers and poems from all over the world, going back hundreds of years, all with a theme of giving thanks.

The section headings are “Gather Around the Table” (Thanks for food), “A Celebration of Life” (Thanks for nature), “The Spirit Within” (Thanks for personal blessings), and “Circle of Community” (Thanks for loved ones).

The book is decorated with exquisite and intricate cut-paper illustrations. Even though they are pictures of the cut-paper illustrations, I found myself wanting to handle the pages delicately. I can’t imagine having the patience and care to create such fine work! The reader feels privileged to get to enjoy it.

This isn’t a long book, and the format is that of a picture book, which is probably why it is marketed as a children’s book. But what a nice reminder and method for giving thanks.

terabithia.com
pameladaltonpapercutting.com
chroniclekids.com

I’m reviewing this book today in honor of Thanksgiving and Nonfiction Monday, hosted today at Jean Little Library.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/giving_thanks.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Review of Little Owl’s Orange Scarf, by Tatyana Feeney

Animal Characters, Picture Book Review 0

Little Owl’s Orange Scarf

by Tatyana Feeney

Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2013. Originally published in the United Kingdom in 2012. 28 pages.

Here’s a fun, simple story that families with knitters will especially enjoy.

Little Owl usually loves surprises. But when Mommy knits him a scarf, it’s itchy. It’s too long. And it’s far too orange.

Little Owl tries hard to lose the scarf, but Mommy always finds it – until the class trip to the zoo.

Then Little Owl gets the fun of picking out yarn for a new scarf. This time, it’s soft and blue. And readers get the fun of spotting where the old scarf ended up.

randomhouse.com/kids

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Picture_Books/little_owls_orange_scarf.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Review of Hank Finds an Egg, by Rebecca Dudley

Animal Characters, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

Hank Finds an Egg

by Rebecca Dudley

Peter Pauper Press, White Plains, New York, 2013. 40 pages.
Starred Review

Hank Finds an Egg is a wordless picture book. What makes it utterly charming are the pictures. They are photographs taken of a completely handcrafted scene.

Hank is a little bear, stitched from felt. He finds an egg on the forest floor. The entire forest was made by the artist, with elements that will be important in the plot. We see the nest, up high in a tree, with two eggs still remaining. Hank tries out different ideas for getting the egg back up to its nest, with no luck until the happy ending.

Rebecca Dudley doesn’t change Hank’s facial expression for any of the pictures (except closed eyes when he’s asleep), yet through his body language she manages to convey plucky determination, concentrated effort, pensiveness, and final joy with the result.

The book shows many steps of each process, giving a feeling of motion. There’s so much to talk about here. Without pre-printed words, children will have so much fun telling you what they see.

An adorably cute book without words that will get kids talking.

storywoods.blogspot.com
peterpauper.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Picture_Books/hank_finds_an_egg.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Review of How To, by Julie Morstad

Contemporary, Picture Book Review 0

How To

By Julie Morstad

Simply Read Books, 2013. 44 pages.

This picture book reminds me of the classic A Hole Is to Dig, by Ruth Krauss, and illustrated by Maurice Sendak. Like A Hole Is to Dig, it looks at everyday things from a child’s perspective, thus making them exceptional.

The text alone doesn’t convey the magic of this book. Each page begins with the words “how to.” We have “how to go fast,” “how to go slow,” “how to see the wind,” “how to feel the breeze,” “how to be a mermaid,” “how to make new friends,” “how to stay close,” “how to disappear,” “how to wonder,” and so much more.

The illustrations are old-fashioned and simple, but so imaginative. On the “how to stay close” page, two girls have braided their hair together. On the “how to make a sandwich” page, kids are lying on top of each other, layered with comforters. On the “how to be faraway” page, a kid is up in a tree.

The book finishes up with exuberant “how to be happy” spreads of children dancing. They forget to mention another way: reading this book!

simplyreadbooks.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Picture_Books/how_to.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Review of Take Me Out to the Yakyu, by Aaron Meshon

Contemporary, Picture Book Review 0

Take Me Out to the Yakyu

by Aaron Meshon

Atheneum Books for Young Readers, New York, 2013. 40 pages.

This picture book shows a boy attending a baseball game in America with his pop pop and a baseball game (yakyu) in Japan with his ji ji. In parallel pages, you see how the game unfolds at the two different places – what’s alike and what’s different.

I thought this was fun, because my son got to attend a game in Japan when he was in middle school, and one of his comments was about all the noisemakers in Japan. Sure enough, in this book, the boy’s pop pop gets him a giant foam hand, but his ji ji gets him a giant plastic horn.

There’s a glossary in the back, in case you didn’t catch what all the Japanese words meant, as well as an author’s note explaining some of the differences.

I’ve always liked seeing what little everyday details are the same or different in different cultures, and this book is full of that in the context of a baseball game. Here in Fairfax County, several local elementary schools have Japanese immersion programs, and this book will be perfect for those kids.

KIDS.SimonandSchuster.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Picture_Books/take_me_out_to_the_yakyu.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Review of Grandma and the Great Gourd, by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni and Susy Pilgrim Waters

Animal Characters, Fantasy, Folk Tales, Picture Book Review, Readalouds 0

Grandma and the Great Gourd

A Bengali Folktale

retold by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
illustrated by Susy Pilgrim Waters

A Neal Porter Book, Roaring Brook Press, New York, 2013. 32 pages.
Starred Review

Here’s a wonderful folktale, marvelously told. The pictures are exquisite, giving the flavor of India. The story is sprinkled with sound effects that aren’t ones native English speakers would naturally use. There’s the repetition of a folktale, and a lovely predictability — with a twist.

This is a book for school age kids, with the text on the long side for preschoolers. With that in mind, the telling is sure to engage their interest.

Here’s how it begins:

Once upon a time, in a little village in India, there lived an old woman whom everyone called Grandma. She loved gardening and had the best vegetable patch in the village.

Grandma lived by herself in a little hut at the edge of the village, next to a deep, dark jungle. At times she could hear herds of elephants lumbering on forest paths, thup-thup-thup, or giant lizards slithering over dry leaves, khash-khash.

She didn’t mind because she had two loyal dogs, Kalu and Bhulu, to protect her. They also helped her with garden chores.

When Grandma crosses the deep, dark forest to visit her daughter, she encounters three fierce animals who want to eat her up. But this is how that goes:

Grandma’s heart went dhip-dhip, but she didn’t let the fox see how scared she was.

“If you’re planning to have me for breakfast,” she said, “that’s a terrible idea. See how skinny I am? I’ll be a lot plumper on my way back from my daughter’s house because she’s such a good cook. You can eat me then, if you like.”

“That sounds good!” said the fox, and he let her go.

Of course, to get home after visiting her daughter, and indeed growing plump, Grandma must outwit the tiger, the bear, and the fox. Her plan works on the tiger and the bear, but the fox is more clever and confronts her. However, there’s a lovely satisfying ending, for which the groundwork was laid at the very start.

This has all that’s good about a folktale, including being one you’ll want to tell again and again.

mackids.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Picture_Books/grandma_and_the_great_gourd.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Review of Not Your Typical Dragon, by Dan Bar-el and Tim Bowers

Delightfully Silly, Fantasy, Picture Book Review 0

Not Your Typical Dragon

by Dan Bar-el
illustrated by Tim Bowers

Viking, 2013. 40 pages.

Big thanks to my co-worker, Kim, for booktalking this book at the elementary schools this year. Watching the Kindergarten and 1st grade classes roar with laughter just at the description, I had to take a closer look.

Crispin Blaze was born into a proud family of fire-breathing dragons.
“Every Blaze breathes fire,” explained his father. “I breathe fire. Your mother breathes fire. Tomorrow, when you turn seven, you’ll breathe fire, too.”

But when Crispin tries to light the birthday candles on his cake, he feels a tingling in his tummy, but fire does not come out. Instead, he breathes out whipped cream!

Crispin’s parents take him to the doctor, and there he breathes out band-aids. The doctor gives him medicine, but Crispin continues to breathe out silly (but oddly appropriate) things. As they seem more and more outrageous, each one is good for a laugh.

Crispin meets a knight who has been told he needs to fight a fire-breathing dragon. They work on the situation together. Things get a little hot, but there’s a lovely solution at the end, and Crispin and his family get to embrace the fact that he’s not your typical dragon.

The message of not necessarily meeting family expectations, but embracing who you are, is an old one. This book puts that message in a funny and fresh package.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Picture_Books/not_your_typical_dragon.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Review of Flora and the Flamingo, by Molly Idle

Animal Characters, Contemporary, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

Flora and the Flamingo

by Molly Idle

Chronicle Books, San Francisco, 2013. 32 pages.
Starred Review

Flora and the Flamingo is a wordless picture book. So I can’t quote the book to tell you how delightful it is.

The story is simple. Doesn’t even use different settings. But you can look at it again and again. We’ve got a flamingo. We’ve got a flamingo-shaped little girl. The flamingo poses. The girl poses in imitation.

Flaps on several pages over both the flamingo and Flora give us more pictures and an additional sense of movement.

At first, the flamingo doesn’t seem too happy about Flora’s imitation. She falls down.

But the flamingo helps her up, and they begin posing together, and it flows into a lovely pas de deux, culminating in an exuberant leap into a pond.

Words don’t do the book justice. Check it out, look at it again and again, and share it with a child!

idleillustration.com
chroniclebooks.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Picture_Books/flora_and_the_flamingo.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.