School is Cool

Today's storytime was all about the end of summer and the beginning of the school year. We had almost twenty-youngsters attend today - which is record attendance for an event that was not a party or contain giveaways! We started out discussing the end of summer and then read four books about starting school or the school experience. We sang "Mary Had a Little Lamb" and "The Wheels on the Bus" and did two finger plays (one I made up!) and sang two other going-off-to-school songs. The group was very engaged and very participatory - always great fun. Here are the books we read today:

Summer's End by Maribeth Boelts
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is a very sweet read-aloud for this time of year! A young girl, Jill, mourns the end of summer and all the wonderful things that she experienced while getting ready for the first day of second grade. The softly colored water color illustrations are lovely. This captures all of the emotions that we all experience with the change of seasons and the transition from summer to the school year.

Bailey by Harry Bliss
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Bailey is quite a dog. He goes to school with regular kids, who love him, but he retains his own doggie quirks! For instance, when it comes to choosing his school "outfit" his closet is filled with half a dozen dog collars. He eats his own homework, and then has to visit the school nurse. Bailey is so very lovable, and when that is combined with wonderful illustrations and a text filled with humor, the result is a fun read aloud book about school.

Never Spit on Your Shoes by Denys Cazet
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Arnie arrives home from his first day of school and tells his mother all about his great adventure over milk and cookies. As he recounts his day, we see the events in big bright illustrations. He describes his diverse group of classmates and enjoys the school tour, learning to write his name, and lunch in the cafeteria. Filled with humor, and interesting misadventures I read this one for all of the moms in my audience, who can identify with the experience of listening to tales told by sons and daughters.

We Love Our School!: A Read-Together Rebus Story by Judy Sierra
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The kids at my story time loved this book, which allowed them to participate in the telling of this story. The brightly colored illustrations held their interest and they loved this rebus story, happily yelling out the words represented by the rebus pictures. The rhyming text bounces along to make this a great interactive read aloud.

Mom, It's My First Day of Kindergarten! by Hyewon Yum
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
My storytime loved this story about a young boy getting ready to head off for his first day of kindergarten. In this version of a first day, it is the mom rather than the child that has first day jitters. The kids loved this twist to the traditional stories - you know, where the child is anxious about starting school and the parent is the calming influence. The text and illustrations are engaging and my audience loved this book.

Summer Time

It feels like I posted here just recently, it is difficult to believe that my last post was from May! It has been a summer of great challenges and great fun. It has also been a summer filled with two different summer reading program themes. At the Public Library, the theme was "Dream Big Read" which included "Own The Night" as the teen theme...lots of night time stories, and stories about imagination. At the Military Base we used the iread program theme: "Reading is so Delicious." For the storytimes on base the themes were "Pizza, Pizza!", "Just one Bite...Please?", "Breakfast", "Lunch", "Dinner", and "Party Food" - here are some of the highlights: Pizza is a popular food with kids and they loved this theme. There are lots of great songs and rhymes, and we recycled old CD's to make mini-pizzas as a craft. Our favorite pizza books were:

Hi, Pizza Man! by Virginia Walter
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I love this simple, funny, and oh so imaginative book based on a game the author would play with her granddaughter while waiting for dinner to arrive. This book starts out innocently asking what the little girl will say to the pizza man when the door bell rings (Hi, Pizza Man!) and then the question changes to, but what if it is a pizza lady? dog? dinosaur? The kids in my audience loved this book, and happily helped make the appropriate animal noises and giggled at the wonderful illustrations.

The Little Red Hen Makes a Pizza by Philemon Sturges
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Anyone familiar with the traditional tale of the busy red hen with the lazy friends will recognize elements of that tale in this modernized story, especially the recurring phrase "Not I." However, this tale, with the lovely cut paper illustrations from Amy Walrod, is fresh and funny. The story opens with the LRH, having finished the last of her bread, preparing to make dinner - looking in her pantry she finds, next to the canned worms, a can of pizza sauce and decides to make pizza. She doesn't plan very well and makes multiple trips to the store and asks to borrow items from her - predictably - unhelpful friends. The detailed pictures engaged my story time audience as we talked about items in shopping carts (she always buys "some other stuff") and ingredient preparation. There are lots of opportunities to count and to predict what will happen next...and a happy ending for all the characters.

We read books about wild food and picky eaters for "Try Just One Bite":

To Market, To Market by Anne Miranda
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
For any food-based story time this book is a must-read. A wild variation on the nursery rhyme "To Market, To Market" this is one wild, hysterically funny version. All the animals are live and they make mischief once home. My story time audience LOVED this one and laughed out loud at the wonderful illustrations. Fun to read, with rhyming text, this is a real winner

Rah, Rah, Radishes!: A Vegetable Chant by April Pulley Sayre
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
With full page photographs of the most beautiful vegetables this is a wonderful story time book. The rhyming, rhythmic text will make even the most passionate vegetable hater change his/her mind!

Our favorite meal time books were:
If You Give a Pig a Pancake by Laura Joffe Numeroff
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Laura Numeroff's books are such classics, and all the kids love them. The gently outrageous consequences that stem from a simple act: giving a mouse a cookie, a muffin to a moose or a pancake to a hungry pig - are sure to make any reader smile. The kids hung on every word and took in every colorful, detailed picture. They even giggled at most of them. They also knew what was coming so when we got to the last page, they all knew that the pig, in the end was going to ask for a pancake. After words I got out a flannel of the story, and the children retold the story with the help of the flannel clues - and they did a very good job of it, too!

A Most Unusual Lunch by Robert Bender
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
When a hungry frog innocently eats a beetle it starts a most...unusual chain of events. Each animal is swallowed whole by a larger animal who displays artifacts of the swallowed animal. My story time audience loved the soft, colorful illustrations and giggled at the wild combinations that occur - for instance lion, the top of this food chain, awakes from a nap to find he had "two antennae, six tiny little legs on his underbelly, two big green legs, a fish tail that rattled, a long forked tongue, plus strange scales.." the expression on the face of this unhappy lion is just priceless. He lets out a roar that begins the chain of animals being released and returning to normal. The warning is clear - you are what you eat - and laughter is guaranteed.

Little Whistle's Dinner Party by Cynthia Rylant
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
My story time audience was familiar with Little Whistle, the adorable guinea pig who lives in a toy store. He is nocturnal and spends many happy nights, once the store shades have been drawn, visiting with his toy-friends in the shop, who come to life at night as well. All of our favorites are here, soldier who reads stories to all the store's babies, lion who loves vanilla cookies, and bear who loves hats. In this book, Little Whistle invites all of his friends to a dinner party, makes elaborate preparations and then arrives in a helicopter to the dinner bringing dessert. Charming and lovable my story time audience hung on every words and smiled at every illustration.

Company's Coming by Arthur Yorinks
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
It was the quiet, normal suburban neighborhood where Moe and Shirley were preparing to host a quiet family spaghetti dinner when....
Aliens drop in on their way to another galaxy and ask to use the bathroom. Shirley is polite to these new guests inviting them to dinner and then calmly offering drinks and appetizers once they arrive to dine. Moe, on the other hand, calls the FBI and has the house surrounded by all sorts of big military tanks and guns. There is humor in the text as well as the wonderful illustrations - very popular with my story time audience.

Little Mouse and the Big Cupcake by Thomas Taylor
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Sweet book about how difficult it is to share. When mouse finds an enormous cupcake he is thrilled - until he realizes that he can't carry it home! One by one he enlists all his friends to try and help him. Of course, Mouse allows each to take a bit...but then hungry mouse begins to fear that there may not be any left for him...

We even did a finger play about five little cupcakes, and I used the new glove set that I created:

For the storytime that included our end of SRP party the theme was - what else? - Party Foods and included these two favorites:
The Beastly Feast by Bruce Goldstone
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
The illustrations in this book are detailed and vibrant, they almost jump off the page. The text is simple and the rhyming is wonderful. The beasts are having a feast and every animal is bringing something. Bears bring pears and parrots bring carrots....mice bring rice and mosquitos bring burritos. This book is a very engaging read aloud...kids loved the pictures and completing the rhymes (not always successfully) For instance when the feast is over everybody claps - the armadillos bring some pillows and then everybody...."Sleeps!" called out my young audience...naps. I'll keep working on rhyming...

Bear Wants More by Karma Wilson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I love Karma Wilson's books. They are great read alouds. With Jane Chapman's charming illustrations this one is an absolute winner. It is spring and one skinny bear wakes up hungry...with the help of his friends he eats his way through the day, devouring everything and wanting more (a great repeated phrase that a story time audience will pick up on. The rhyming text is very readable and the party scene at the end elicited giggles galore from my audience.

My biggest challenge at my public library job was to work with a fleet of volunteers to manage a summer reading program that included 1,045 registrants, 10 weekly programs and a teen lock-in event with a zombie theme (remember "Own the Night") It definitely kept me on my toes. We had a 56% completion rate, and huge attendance at the programs, so I guess I had a very successful summer@my library.