Animals are Everywhere

Paws, fins, hooves, claws, and wings is the image that I pulled from our summer reading resources for the title slide of my power point presentation of the words for the songs and rhymes at this week's story time. I chose stories that each contained lots of different animals. The craft was based on the last book I read, Animal Masquerade by Marianne Dubuc - I printed some animal masks that the kids colored, cut and could wear so that they could also wear a disguise.

Here are today's books:

The Zoo I Drew by Todd H. Doodler
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is a wonderful romp through the alphabet. With big bold pictures of all sorts of animals and goofy, rhyming text the reader is treated to a good laugh while learning the alphabet and all sorts of animal facts. The entries for "U" and "X" are marvelous. Great read-aloud although I found myself changing some of the text on the fly to make the rhythm work...

A House Is a House for Me by Mary Ann Hoberman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Houses of all kinds are the subject of this book filled with wonderfully detailed illustrations and rhyming text. The text flows beautifully and makes this a great read aloud. All sorts of houses for animals are depicted, "a hill is a home for an ant…a hive is a home for a bee…a web is a home for a spider…."and all sorts of homes for things as well: "a sandwich is home for some ham…a peach is a home for a peach pit…a hangar's a home for a plane…" Even the youngest members of my audience loved this book and afterwards we even came up with a few homes of our own…a book is a home for some words and pictures…a library is the home for books."

Almost An Animal Alphabet by Katie Viggers
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is a beautiful concept book for the very young that will also please the adult reading/sharing the book. The illustrations are soft and sweet and there are plenty of opportunities to add some counting for additional engagement with the reader. Many of the letters illustrate multiple examples of the animal…for example "B is for Bears" features eight different bears all of them labeled. "E is for Elephant" is a two page spread illustrating the differences between Asian and African Elephants. Such a beautiful book!

Animal Masquerade by Marianne Dubuc
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
All of the animals are having a masquerade party - disguises are a must - and so, one by one, we meet each of the animals and what they are wearing. There are colored pencil drawings - and the ones depicting the animal in costume are hilarious. There is simple text mainly The went disguised as a and one animal leads to another - for example the wiener dogs went as a zebra and then, on the next page, the zebra went as a mouse. There are some puns (the fish went as a cat…which made him a catfish) and the author pokes fun at chickens (the hen didn't dress up because she didn't understand a thing) This was laugh-out-loud funny for kids and adults alike and there were plenty of opportunities to engage by identifying animals and making their sounds.

One little guy left the library wearing his brightly colored lion mask and roaring much to everyone's delight.