Lions and Tigers and Bears! Oh, My!

So, I admit I have used this theme before…but one of my story time regulars REALLY loves lions and tigers, so it seemed right to bring it back. The books were all new, the craft was new - we made a paper bag puppet lion The rhymes and songs were mixed - and I even rewrote some. Repeating this theme made me realize how much I have grown as a story teller over the past two years!  It was a young audience, so I didn't read all of the books I'd planned and I changed my presentation on the fly (another thing that is much easier to do now!) to better suit a small audience of rambunctious two-year-olds, but here are the books we read:

The Lion and the Mouse by Jerry Pinkney
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
The illustrations are breathtaking in the wordless book.  My original plan for story time was to read a traditional version of this Aesop's fable, and then pull this book out next and have members of my audience help me tell the story…my audience was small and young, so I used this book instead and just ad-libbed the fable.  This version has it all: the fierce, majestic lion and a tiny, beautifully drawn mouse, hunters, a snare, and a promise kept.  In this version the mouse scurries back to a nest full of babies, so I included the fact that she was a mother in the conversation she had with the lion as she pleaded with him to save her life.  Don't let the fact that this is a wordless picture book stop you from sharing it with a story time audience - because my audience loved it.


Chloe and the Lion by Mac Barnett
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is an hysterically funny book!  The author and illustrator (or should I say illustrators?) feature prominently along with Chloe the main character and a lion…no a dragon…NO a lion ("but a dragon is so much cooler")  The story progresses slowly, as the author and illustrator argue about text and pictures and replacement illustrators.  There is the running gag above (a dragon would be so much cooler) and humor filled illustrations and just plain funny text as the author argues with and fires two illustrators and then argues with Chloe about the way she looks.  Everything works out in the end.  This one had my audience rolling in the aisles!


Mr. Tiger Goes Wild by Peter  Brown
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
When the book opens, Mr. Tiger lives in a very proper city where everything around him is a very proper brown/gray and everyone wears hats and ties and sips tea from tea cups.  Then Mr. Tiger decides to go wild.  His life becomes much more colorful when he begins walking on all fours and abandons this suit and hat  for a swim in a fountain.  His next step is to go off into the wilderness where he is surrounded by trees and waterfalls and large, open, grassy fields.  One rainy day, he realizes that his misses the comforts of the city and he misses his friends.  Upon returning he sees that even in the city things have changed…The illustrations are lovely and have a very "retro" look and feel to them.  The use of color helps reinforce the changes in the Mr. Tiger and his friends.  The text is elegant in its simplicity and combines well with the illustrations to tell a fun story that even the youngest members of my story time audience could relate to.


Baby Bear by Kadir Nelson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Baby Bear is lost!  We feel his fear through the beautiful illustrations and simple text. The text is mostly dialog as he asks animal after animal for help in finding his way home.  This is an awesome book, that my story time audience loved.  It is a quiet, gentle story that worked well to close my story time and would also work well as a bedtime story.


Here are the two others that I had prepared to read:

The Lion and the Mice by Rebecca Emberley
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
This is a retelling of the Aesop's fable, using simple language and the brightly colored illustrations that are the Emberley's trademark.  The bright colors captured and held my story time audience' attention, although I worried that some of the illustrations might be a bit too scary.  The story doesn't flow as well as it could, but since everyone knows the basics it is easy enough to ad lib a bit to smooth the rough edges.


The Rabbit And The Turtle by Eric Carle
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is a awesome collection of eleven Aesop's fables.  Each fable is told in everyday language that is easy to understand.  Each fable covers two pages in this book - the first is the text of the fable and the facing page is an amazing Eric Carle illustration.


Here is one of my reworked songs (from King County Library's "Tell Me A Story"):

The Lions in the Zoo

(Tune: "The Wheels on The Bus")

The lions at the zoo say, “Roar, roar, roar! 

Roar, roar, roar” “Roar, roar, roar” 

The lions at the zoo say, “Roar, roar, roar” 

All day long. 

The Lions at the zoo… 

             …they groom their mane. 

         …they flex their claws. 

        …they swish their tail.

Yipes, Stripes!

The child's foot is Mr.
 Zebra's face!

After a summer of Food (CA Public Libraries Summer Reading Theme) and Going places (the DOD Summer Reading Theme: Books Will Take You Places) I really am looking for some new and different themes this fall.  This title has been kicking around my brain for quite and so I pulled some of my favorite tiger and zebra books and a storytime was born.  I even found A wonderful Zebra craft that will be just perfect for my storytime audience (with a little help from their parents!).


I made up a couple of "Five Little" Rhymes:

        Five Little Tigers

Five little tigers lying in the shade

One stretched and yawned and said, “I’m bored!”

He walked away and then there were four.

Four little tigers lying in the shade,

One stood and said, “Let’s race to that tree”

He ran away and then there were three.

Three little tigers wondering what to do

One chased a butterfly and then there were two.

Two little tigers lying in the sun,

One wandered off to find a snack

And then there was one.

One little tiger went to sleep, and just as he started to snore

The others came back and woke him with a roar.

Five little zebras

Five little zebras on the African plain

Were playing when it started to rain

One little zebra said, “Those drops feel good”

The second one said, “I wish I had a hood”

The third one said, “Let’s splash and play”

The fourth one said, “I could do that all day!”

The fifth one said, “I’d rather stay dry,”

And so he ran home with a mighty sigh.

I adapted a number of other rhymes to common tunes, like "Twinkle, Twinkle" and sang about the tigers in the zoo to the tune of "Wheels on the Bus":

The tigers in the zoo say,

“Grrr, grrr, grrr”

“Grrr, grrr, grrr”

“Grrr, grrr, grrr”

The tigers at the zoo say,

“Grrr, grrr, grrr”

All day long.

Here are the books we read:


Read to Tiger by S.J. Fore
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is a wonderful read aloud book.  A boy just wants to read his book, but Tiger and his antics prove too distracting.  Tiger refers to himself in the third person, so he was fun to create a funny voice for...in addition his antics include great sounds like loud gum chewing "chomps" and karate exclamations.  The kids were enchanted by the illustrations and laughed at Tiger's antics.

It's a Tiger! by David LaRochelle
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is a very engaging and interactive read-aloud with bright bold illustrations that are very appealing even to very young children.  The text opens with a question, "Are you ready for a story?" and begins with monkeys swinging on vines in a jungle.  But wait!  There is an orange and black vine, it's a tiger tail.  Every other page contains the phrase, "It's a Tiger....Run!"  For Toddler/preschool story time, get the kids up on their feet and have them act out the story as our main character runs, climbs and swims to get away from the tiger.  This is a fun read-aloud that will have the kids giggling and yelling out, "It's a tiger...run!"


Zee by Michel Gay
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Little Zee is a very cute little zebra who loves climbing into bed with his mom and dad.  One morning though, they are still asleep, and he decides to wake them with coffee...but things don't quite turn out the way he planned.  Zee has good intentions, and cleans up all of his mess, but he does have quite an adventure.  He does get his snuggle with Mom and Dad - and they do get their coffee.  The illustrations are lovely and soft - and I love the zebra striped end pages.  My storytime audience fell in love with little Zee, and when you read this book, you will soon discover why.

Z Is for Moose by Kelly Bingham
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
With wonderfully funny illustrations and simple text this is no ordinary alphabet book.  Zebra has all of the letters organized and ready to go and everything starts well - apple, ball, and cat all make their appearances.  But moose can't wait his turn, which creates chaos. When he discovers that zebra has chosen mouse for "M" things get really wild. My storytime audience loved the pictures, especially when Moose appears in an ice cream cone...and later when he adds graffiti hooves and antlers to ring and snake.  One can't help but laugh at Moose's antics and zebra's solution to the problem will make you smile.