November Fun

This week's theme was November Fun. We sang a special verse to our opening song, where we shouted "Turkey!" and sang other songs about falling leaves, squirrels with their acorns, and, of course, Mr Turkey. Our craft was handprint turkeys - the kids all made two: one to take home now and one which would decorate our children's room for the month of...November. We had ten kids join us...which was close to a record for this military base library. More importantly though, many of the little ones have come before, so the storytime is finally developing a core audience. Here are today's books:

In November by Cynthia Rylant
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Cynthia Rylant does a beautiful job "explaining" November in this book. The text is gentle and rich with description. (For example, "The trees are standing al sticks and bones.") The illustrations are perfectly matched with the text and are soft and gentle as well. We counted the cats "piled up in the corners of barns" (6) and the dogs lying before the fire (2) The foods of November with their "orange small" and all the warmth of Thanksgiving are captured between the pages of this book. A very special tribute to a very special time of year.
Go to Sleep, Groundhog! by Judy Cox
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I picked this book up originally while I was looking for some books for Groundhog Day. I decided that it was the perfect addition to this storytime. Rather than focusing on Groundhog Day, it is about a groundhog who goes to bed just after Columbus Day, setting his alarm for February 2, but suffers insomnia. When he looks at his clock the first time he wakes it is "only half past October." Deciding to take a walk to help make him sleepy he strolls out into the middle of Hallween and sees sights that he has never seen before. This happens again in November and December. This is a wonderfully imaginative book, and the kids loved it. So did the adults.

The Mitten by Jan Brett
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book is a beautiful adaptation of a classic Ukrainian Folk tale about a boy, his grandmother, snow white mittens, and eight animals. Jan Brett's illustrations are simply gorgeous. I told this as a flannel board story, with a ball of white yarn forming the mitten, but think that next time I might use the figures as finger puppets while an assistant holds the book...the illustrations are just too good to miss.

That Pup! by Lindsay Barrett George
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The entire room fell in love with this precocious little puppy and her game of finding acorns. The illustrations are gorgeous and the little puppy who "follows her nose" is too cute for words. When she encounters the squirrel who had hidden all the acorns she is so enthusiastically gathering, she quickly changes her game to "putting all the acorns back" and together squirrel (who is also very cute) and pup race around putting all ten (we counted them) acorns back in their hiding places. One little three year old sighed and said, "how sweet!" A very engaging book for all ages.