Children’s Books

November 28 – National French Toast Day

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Lady Pancake and Sir French Toast by Josh Funk and Brendan Kearney Picture Book Review

About the Holiday

French toast is special breakfast treat that has been enjoyed at least as far back as the 4th century, and according to an ancient Latin recipe has always been made in the same way. While the recipe—bread dipped in egg and fried, then topped with syrup, fruit, or (my particular favorite) cinnamon sugar—may have stayed the same, this delicious concoction has gone by many names. Whether you call it French toast, eggy bread, poor knight’s pudding, German toast, Bombay toast, or pain perdu, though, you know what to do on today’s holiday!

Lady Pancake and Sir French Toast

Written by Josh Funk | Illustrated by Brendan Kearney

 

You know those strange noises you sometimes hear coming from your refrigerator? And how you could have sworn the leftovers were on the top shelf? Well, Josh Funk’s Lady Pancake and Sir French Toast may solve those mysteries and more in this rambunctious tale about what happens when relationships grow frosty.

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Image copyright Brendan Kearney, text copyright Josh Funk. Courtesy of Sterling Children’s Books

One day Lady Pancake and Sir French Toast are hanging out at the back of the fridge when they learn the syrup is almost gone. Lady Pancake claims it as her own, but Sir French Toast replies, “Not if I get there first!” And so off they race! “Through Broccoli Forest, past Orange Juice Fountain, they climbed to the top of Potato Mash Mountain.” But the race takes a turn as the two meet obstacles that are no fun at all: at the edge of a shelf “Toast couldn’t quite stop, plummeting down into jam with a plop.” And “Chili Lagoon slathered Pancake in muck and then at a fork in the road she got stuck.”

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Image copyright Brendan Kearney, text copyright Josh Funk. Courtesy of Sterling Children’s Books

 

The one-time friends call each other names and taunt each other with boasts of being the best breakfast food. As their competition upends the peace of the whole refrigerator from shelf to shelf, Lady Pancake and Sir French Toast find their energy wilting, and by the time they reach that sweet sought-after prize, they are “battered and soggy, exhausted and crumbling, too tired to push, they were limping and stumbling.”

With the bottle in sight, they are shocked to discover that the last drop of syrup is already gone. Who could have done this dastardly deed? None other than the sneaky Baron Von Waffle! With nothing to gain, Lady Pancake and Sir French Toast no longer have a reason to fight. In fact they realize that they lost out on the syrup because they were fighting. When they see that there is a little butter left, they decide to use the lesson they learned and share it.

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Image copyright Brendan Kearney, courtesy of Sterling Children’s Books

There are so many fantastic rhymes in this book that kids will want to hear again and again. One of my favorites comes as Sir French Toast catches up to Lady Pancake: “He scraped himself off and yelled up, / ‘You’re a meanie!’ / as Pancake rappelled / down a rope of linguini.” With such laugh-inducing verses, kids may never look at food the same way again. Josh Funk has created a tale about friendship that is both boisterous and unique and sure to quickly become a favorite.

The refrigerator world as envisioned by Brendan Kearney is as colorful as the food rainbow and as active as a playground in summer. It’s also stacked with the cutest array of legumes, yogurt, cake, juices, fruit, and veggies you’ll find anywhere. The final fold-down page of the entire refrigerator is a delight that kids of all ages will want to linger over even after the story of The Great Race between Lady Pancake and Sir French Toast is over.

Ages 5 and up

Sterling Children’s Books, 2015 | ISBN 978-1454914044

Visit Josh Funk’s Website to download a free Lady Pancake and Sir French Toast Activity Kit and to learn about more upcoming titles!

Discover more art and books by Brendan Kearney on his website!

Watch the trailer for this amazing race – you’ll be singing the Lady Pancake & Sir French Toast theme song in no time!

Love Lady Pancake and Sir French Toast? You butter get ready for more fun with their next adventure: The Case of the Stinky Stench, coming in May 2017!

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National French Toast Day Activity 

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Sweet as Syrup Figure

 

Fun shouldn’t be kept bottled up! Well…maybe just this once. Make your own figure to display or play with from a syrup bottle with this craft. It’s sure to be as sweet as you are!

Supplies

  • Small plastic syrup bottle with a narrow squeeze fliptop and without a handle, empty
  • 1 ½-inch wooden ball with ½-inch hole in bottom
  • 16-inch to 18-inch square piece of cloth
  • Ribbon or strip of material
  • 12 to 14-inch long medium-gauge craft wire
  • Gel pens, black, blue, brown, red (Gel pens work well on the wood as the ink doesn’t bleed into the wood and are easy to control)
  • Poly fill or needle-felting wool
  • Scissors
  • Strong glue

CPB - Syrup Bottle Figure II

Directions

To prepare the bottle

  1. Remove labels from syrup bottle
  2. Cut the flip top in half, keeping the narrow nozzle part

To make the head

  1. Holding the wooden ball with the hole at the bottom, draw a face on the wooden ball with the gel pens
  2. Glue a small handful of poly fill or needle-felting wool to the top of the wooden ball for hair. You can make the hair has long, short, or poofy as you wish.

To make the dress

  1. Cut a 16-inch diameter circle from the material

To assemble the figure

  1. To make the arms, wrap the wire around the neck of the syrup bottle, crossing it in the back and pulling tight
  2. Center the material over the opening of the syrup bottle
  3. Cut tiny slits in the material at the location of the wire on each side of the bottle, and pull the arms through the material
  4. Bend the ends of the wire into a small loop to form hands
  5. Screw the cap with the narrow nozzle over the material
  6. Tie the ribbon or strip of material around the narrow part of the bottle to make the figure’s waist
  7. Place the hole in the wooden ball over the nozzle in the cap and glue into place

Make up your own story with your new figure!

Picture Book Review

November 22 – It’s Picture Book Month

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About the Holiday

Picture Book Month is an international literacy inititive put together by a group of authors and illustrators to raise awareness of the importance of print picture books. Througout the world libraries, schools, booksellers, authors, illustrators, and those who love picture books celebrate the wonder of this art form enjoyed by children and adults. The complexity of picture books is astounding. They contain some of the most beautiful art and compelling stories being created today. To learn more about the importance of the picture book visit Picture Book Month: A Celebration! to find daily posts by authors, illustrators, and experts in the field as well as fun activities!

The Whisper

By Pamela Zagarenski

 

A little girl loves stories and the magical realms they can take her to. One day while waiting for school to be dismissed, she spies a book on a shelf. Her teacher allows her to take it home with her, and the little girl happily runs off with it when the clock strikes 3:00. On the way home, she doesn’t notice that all the letters are escaping from the book or that a wily fox is catching them in a net.

At home she secludes herself in her room, excited to read the mysterious book. She turns the pages, awed by the beautiful pictures. But by the time she has finished, she has tears in her eyes. “Where were the words? Where were the stories?” The girl flips through the book again, but this time she hears a small whisper: “Dear little girl, don’t be disappointed. You can imagine the words. You can imagine the stories.”

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Copyright Pamela Zagarenski, courtesy of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

The whisper seems so knowing that the girl does at it suggests. She turns to the first page where a blue bear followed by a beekeeper walks under a honeycomb sun toward a brown bear. The girl stares at the picture and thinks of a title: Blue Bear’s Visit. Her story begins: “Blue Bear arrived on the first day of spring. He promised…”

Warming to the idea of creating stories, the girl examines the second picture. She notices the same white rabbit that was in the first picture. In the foreground a “magnificent ox” is listening to a man whispering into its large, soft ear. The Secret, the little girl titles this story, which starts: “Mr. Ox, you must please promise not to tell anyone, but we need your help. Last week…”

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Copyright Pamela Zagarenski, courtesy of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

With the third picture the words tumble out more easily, forming sentences that give life to the massive white elephant, regal lion, and that rabbit again who are traveling the sea in a long, open boat. The Quest, she calls it. In Tigers Prayer, preparations are being made: tea is brewing, a clown with a pointed hat plays his accordion, a windhorse jumps through hoops, and the rabbit rides a golden ring as a lion hears what Tiger has to say. A Birthday Party comes next, and it seems Pan has planned a very secret party. An owl perches in the crook of a tree asking for the password with a “Hoo, Who?” which is answered quickly because the vanilla cake with raspberry filling and vanilla cream frosting holding 6 candles must be delivered.

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Copyright Pamela Zagarenski, courtesy of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

The Magical Cloak sees the little girl’s imagination truly take flight as she decides the man in the “elaborate coat” is a wizard or magician whose bubbles come to life once released from the blower. Enormous whales now fill the harbor. They are beautiful, but something must be done….Next, hurry to meet the owl! He is picking up passengers at midnight. But what does the golden key in his beak open? Only the story The Golden Key locked in the little girl’s mind will tell.

Hours go by as the little girl creates tales for each picture in the book. As the night grows late, she sleeps, carried into slumber on dreams woven from the pictures and stories she imagined. When she wakes up, the girl wishes to spend more time with her new friends, but it’s time for school so she gathers up the book and hurries away.

On the path to school she meets a fox who is carrying a bag. “Excuse me, little girl,” says the fox. “I believe I have the words to your book.” The fox then explains how he caught the words as they spilled from the pages the day before. The fox gives her his parcel, but asks for a favor. The girl is happy to oblige and lets the fox stand on her shoulders to reach a bunch of grapes dangling from a nearby vine.

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Copyright Pamela Zagarenski, courtesy of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

The girl rushes into school and apologizes for being late. She relates the story of the fox and the words and the magical night she has spent making up tales for the pictures in the book. “I have so many stories to tell you,” says the girl to her teacher. “‘I can’t want to hear,’” the teacher replies with a smile.”

Opening a book by Pamela Zagarenski is to fall into an alternate realm of such beauty and imagination that you forget the real world exists.  Her paintings are composed of rich, regal hues swirling with images and designs that overlap and float to create the kind of experience only the deepest, most complex dreams allow. The characters and details follow page to page uniting the pictures and, subtly, the stories the little girl discovers in them: The teapot, once introduced, waits under a tree on the next page and rides the waves of the whale-filled sea in the next. The bees and the rabbit are constant companions on each spread, and the animals will fill the reader with awe.

The little girl’s imagined stories are tantalizing with just the right mix of the mysterious and the tangible to entice readers to add more. The frame of the Aesop Fable The Fox and the Grapes is inspired and could lead to a conversation about how “life is what you make it.”

The Whisper is a book readers will want to linger over and dip into again and again, and would be especially fun on those days when there’s “nothing” to do. It makes a beautiful gift for any occasion and would be a welcome addition to any home library.

Ages 4 – 9 (this book would also appeal to adults)

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015 | ISBN 978-0544416864

Picture Book Month Activity

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I Have the Reading Bug Book Plate

 

Do you want to let everyone know which books are yours? Or just declare your love of books? Then display this printable I Have the Reading Bug Book Plate in your books. on your wall, or in your locker!

Picture Book Review

November 20 – National Absurdity Day

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About the Holiday

Absurdity is all around us. It can make us laugh, make us mad, and make us see people and events with a new perspective. Today’s holiday gives us the opportunity to embrace absurdity in all its forms. You can spend the day doing something ridiculous, reading absurdist literature, or maybe listening to the music composed by the subject of today’s book!

Strange Mr. Satie: Composer of the Absurd

Written by M. T. Anderson | Illustrated by Petra Mathers

 

Born in 1866 in France, Erik Satie was a man of contradictions. “‘I was born very young in a very old world,’” he once remarked, and some thought that he never really grew up but always remained “a child with an old man’s smile.” This dichotomy even influenced the kind of music he liked to compose. Even as a child Satie loved music, and as he grew older he wanted to create music that was “both very young and very old, very bold and very shy, that followed no rules but its own.”

Satie liked to combine dissonant styles, such as chants and chorus line tunes. His listeners, with their fancy clothes, impeccable manners, and preconceived notions didn’t understand or like Satie’s “strange” music. On his part Satie found most people frightening and confusing. As a young man he moved to Paris where he made friends. One of his friends took him to a café called Le Chat Noir or The Black Cat. The café, with its resident cat, upstairs theater, and hidden poet’s skeleton attracted poets, artists, dancers, “wizards, and wisecrackers,” who would gather to share their work. Some had invented “luminous hats” while others had “schemes to cover the oceans with cork so they could travel from New York to France.”

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Image copyright Petra Mathers, text copyright M. T. Anderson. Courtesy of Candlewick Press

Satie liked Le Chat Noir. He played the piano and people listened—without laughing, without even moving, just allowing themselves to feel happy or sad or as if they were in a dream. Feeling accepted in this atmosphere, Satie wrote his most famous pieces for the piano—the Gymnopédies. His unusual songs for parties, puppet shows, and other occasions had equally unusual titles: one was called “The Dreamy Fish,” another “In a Horse Costume,” and still another “Real Flabby Preludes (for a Dog).” Instead of the usual instructions composers wrote for musicians, Satie included instructions like “‘On yellowing velvet’ and ‘I want a hat of solid mahogany.’”

One day at Le Chat Noir, Erik Satie “met an artist and model Suzanne Valadon and fell in love with her.” The only problem was that she already had a boyfriend—a wealthy lawyer. Satie simply invited himself along on their dates. Satie made friends, but he also lost them easily due to his terrible temper. He yelled at his friends when they didn’t like his music, when they did like his music, and for many small perceived grievances in between. He and Suzanne fought frequently until she left him forever.

Erik Satie seemed more “like a visitor” on Earth than one of its citizens. His wardrobe consisted of “seven identical grey velvet suits and that was all.” Instead of washing with soap, he used a stone, and his room was so small he had to climb on the bed just to get in the door. By this time Satie was in his late 30s and had never learned the rules of music. He realized that he needed to go back to school. After graduating he took to wearing suits and carrying an umbrella. He looked “normal” on the outside, but his eyes still gleamed with the unique creativity inside him.

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Image copyright Petra Mathers, text copyright M. T. Anderson. Courtesy of Candlewick Press

In 1917 Satie and his friends wrote and performed a ballet called Parade with sets designed by Pablo Picasso. The story of the ballet was dramatic and the music was peculiar—played on xylophones, typewriters, and sirens. The audiences and critics disliked it intensely; it caused fights and insults. Satie even came close to going to jail over his rude response to a critic.

In 1924 Satie wrote another ballet called Cancelled, which featured a movie and a real camel, and became a self-fulfilling prophesy when on opening night the lead dancer actually worried himself sick and the ballet was cancelled. When the ballet opened a few nights later, however, the audience loved it and, finally, Satie heard long-sought applause. Soon afterward Satie became sick and was taken to the hospital. He died on July 1.

Poets, artists, and musicians came from all over to attend Erik Satie’s funeral. They wanted to honor this most unique man who lived life on his own terms and whose music influenced famous composers in the future.

T. Anderson’s honest and entertaining biography of Erik Satie depicts the quirkiness of the composer’s life through well-chosen anecdotes that will have readers laughing, shaking their heads, and empathizing with this man of extraordinary brilliance. While Satie’s personality and creativity made for a topsy-turvy existence, Anderson combines lyrical passages with those of straight narration sprinkled with expressive adjectives and verbs to clearly paint a portrait of this most unusual and influential composer.

Petra Mathers brings to life late 1800s and early 1900s France as well as the unusual music Erik Satie composes. In vivid illustrations Satie is seen mingling with the patrons of Le Chat Noir, joining Suzanne Valadon on her dates, sitting in his small room and classroom, and giving vent to his argumentative nature. As Satie cannot be separated from his music, his pieces are depicted here. Disparate objects—candles, balls, bells, dice, question marks, dominoes, and more—burst out of a piano and into and out of listeners’ ears; a performer in the ballet Parade cross the stage wearing a costume of skyscrapers; and the ballet Cancelled with its smoking canon and live camel results in flower-strewn acclaim.

Ages 6 – 10

Candlewick Press, 2016 (reprint edition) | ISNB 978-0763687755

Visit M. T. Anderson‘s website to learn more about his books for children, teens, and adults. Plus you’ll find videos, interviews, wallpapers, and more gimmicks!

National Absurdity Day Activity

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Really Ridiculous Coloring Pages

 

Have you every seen a frog in a suit or a dancing alligator? Absurd, right? Have fun with these printable Really Ridiculous Coloring Pages!

Frog Coloring Page | Alligator Coloring Page

November 19 – National Adoption Day

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About the Holiday

National Adoption Day is a national collective initiative to raise awareness of the more than 100,000 children in foster care who are waiting to find permanent families. Sponsored by the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute, The Alliance for Children’s Rights, and Children’s Action Network, National Adoption Day was instituted in 2000, and since then has made the wishes of nearly 58,000 children come true. Last year 4,000 children in foster care found forever families on this day.

The Story I’ll Tell

Written by Nancy Tupper Ling | Illustrated by Jessica Lanan

 

A mom and her child snuggle in a big comfy chair reading a book together. “Someday,” the mom thinks, “when you ask where you came from, I’ll tell you a story.” She considers telling her child that they came from a faraway land, carried in a hot-air balloon that gently drifted down “like a feather” into the backyard. “‘You’re home now,’ I said. Then I wrapped you in a blanket as red and silky as the balloon’s sails.”

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Image copyright Jessica Lanan, text copyright Nancy Tupper-Ling. Courtesy of Lee & Low

Or perhaps she will remember it differently: the blanket was fashioned from the silver cape worn by a mysterious horseman who rode into town with the baby in his saddle bag. Maybe, instead, it was an angel: “Wrapped in her arms, you followed a trail of lanterns around the world until you reached our doorstep. How your eyes sparkled when I first saw you.” But, no. She thinks back over the years and once again hears a lark singing high in the birch tree. “When I climbed to the top,” the mom will say, “you were cradled in the branches. Did you know I’d never let you fall? Your hands fluttered like leaves when the clouds passed by.”

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Image copyright Jessica Lanan, text copyright Nancy Tupper-Ling. Courtesy of Lee & Low

The child’s mom might use her own grandmother’s tale of how she, herself, was found in the cabbage patch. But she would alter the setting slightly to a riot of tiger lilies that peppered her baby’s cheeks with pollen-like freckles. Or the child may have arrived in town with the August moon, the illustrious honoree riding on the dragon float as musicians played and lion dancers performed. “Your smile was as wide as the ocean when I cradled you.”

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Image copyright Jessica Lanan, text copyright Nancy Tupper-Ling. Courtesy of Lee & Low

Maybe the baby’s parents weren’t at a parade, but walking along the seashore when their child “floated in on a wave. No, not a wave! I’d say there was a dragon queen who kept you by the sea to raise you as her own….I waited inside until the dragon queen fell asleep. Then I tiptoed inside and rescued you from her dark cave.” Even as she imagines all these stories, however, the child’s mother knows they will not be believed, “because it will be hard to fool the brightest child in the world.”

The true story, however, is just as marvelous and magical as any invention. So when the child is old enough to wonder, the mother says, “I will tell you how we gathered you in a silk blanket and flew on wings through the sky. Your eyes sparkled like the ocean below, and your hands fluttered as clouds passed by.”

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Image copyright Jessica Lanan, text copyright Nancy Tupper-Ling. Courtesy of Lee & Low

Bringing a child into a family is always an awe-inspiring experience, almost inexplicable in the changes it creates in the heart. Sometimes the true story doesn’t seem to begin to accurately reflect the wonder of it all. Nancy Tupper Ling plumbs the depth of these feelings in The Story I’ll Tell, offering lyrical imaginings drawn from the fairytales, myths, and legends that are part of our global inheritance and enlighten our lives.

As a mother plans what she will someday tell her adopted child, readers learn that each of her various scenarios contain aspects of the actual story. Throughout, Tupper Ling offers assurances of the anticipated and enduring love the parents have for their child. While the ethnicity of the adopted child is not stated, images suggest that the baby was born in China. The book is also written without gender pronouns and illustrated with gender-neutral clothing and the short hair of most babies, making this a universal book.

Jessica Lanan’s gorgeous, ethereal paintings perfectly reflect the emotional power of Tupper Ling’s text. With each page the baby comes to the mother and father anew, highlighting not only the moment that the child became theirs but also the waiting that took place beforehand. Each two-page spread glows with sunlight, lantern light, or starlight and is connected by a swooping ribbon of imagination that carries aspects of the child’s heritage in its wake. Lanan’s vibrant palette of reds, blues, yellows, and greens depicts the joy of both parents and their child. Every page is infused with exquisite beauty and invites readers to linger to appreciate the full impact of this story.

The Story I’ll Tell makes a wonderful gift and is a must for all adoptive parents and their children. It is also an exceptional book to be shared with all children.

Ages 2 – 8

Lee & Low Books, 2015 | ISBN

Discover more books for children and adults by Nancy Tupper Ling on her website!

View a gallery of Jessica Lanan‘s illustration work for children’s and middle grade books

National Adoption Day Activity

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I Love My Family! Portrait

 

Use this printable heart-framed I Love My Family! Page to draw a portrait of your family!

Picture Book Review

November 17 – Take a Hike Day

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About the Holiday

The American Hiking Society established today’s holiday to encourage families, friends, groups, and individuals to get outside and experience the fun and relaxation of discovering new paths and new places. Even if you’re only able to take a short walk during lunchtime or after work, getting out in nature gives you new perspectives and clears the mind—it’s great exercise too! So gather some friends or your family and head out the door for a short (or a long) hike today!

Harriet Can Carry It

Written by Kirk Jay Mueller | Illustrated by Sarah Vonthron-Laver

 

Harriet Huff is a kangaroo who every day carries the mail in her pouch, delivering it all over town. Her job has left her “feeling quite frail,” She decides to take a day off and hike to the beach with her Joey where they can “relax and be free.” The next morning they wake up and prepare for a fun day. Harriet gathers their beach towels, Joey, and his favorite toy and tucks them gently into her pouch. She gets no further than the bottom of her porch, however, before she hears “someone yell, ‘HEY!’”

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Image copyright Sarah Vonthron-Laver, text copyright Kirk Jay Mueller. Courtesy of starbrightbooks.com

“It was old Wanda Wombat, so nosey and grouchy, / Asking, ‘That a beach towel hanging out of your pouchy? / Can I come to the beach? Can I come with YOU? / Will you carry my beach chair? Can I please come too?’” Harriet stammers, “W-e-l-l…” as she considers her plans to relax, but before she can properly answer, Wanda invites herself along, telling Harriet that she has room in her pouch “for tons of stuff.” “‘YOU CAN CARRY IT, HARRIET, so I can come too.’”

They walk up a hill together, Harriet sweating a bit with the effort of carrying the beach chair that has replaced Joey in her pouch. Suddenly, they hear someone shout, “‘STOP!’” It’s Wallaby Wendy who is also on her way to the beach. She asks Harriet if she will carry her swim fins.  Harriet hesitates. “‘W-e-l-l, I’m not sure…’” she says. But Wanda is there with the answer. “‘She has lots of room. She has loads of space / For tones of stuff in her big pouchy place. She is an incredibly kind kangaroo. HARRIET CAN CARRY IT, so you can come too.’”

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Image copyright Sarah Vonthron-Laver, text copyright Kirk Jay Mueller. Courtesy of starbrightbooks.com

They start up again all in a row and it isn’t too long before someone says “‘WHOA!’” It was Kenny Koala, who in his own surfer-dude way asks Harriet if she can carry his board so he can come with them too. Harriet takes a moment to think—but it’s a moment Wanda has no problem filling, and so Harriet acquires Kenny’s surfboard too. “AHOY!” beckons Marcie, a marsupial mouse, “Who’d made the mistake of leaving her house / With a huge heavy kayak strapped to her back. / Her long plastic paddle poked out of its sack.” Wanda assures her, too, that Harriet can carry it, and with the kayak stowed in front, the group takes off again.

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Image copyright Sarah Vonthron-Laver, text copyright Kirk Jay Mueller. Courtesy of starbrightbooks.com

Next they happen upon the Dingo twins who need help with their flying ring—an easy addition to Harriet’s pouch according to Wanda. A little farther down the path they encounter Bill Bandicoot who can no longer hold his beach umbrella. Wanda takes a look at Harriet and for the first time sees that she looks tired and that her pouch is nearly bursting. This time Wanda asks, “‘WILL YOU CARRY IT, HARRIET, so he can come too?”

The usual hesitant Harriet has had enough, and she answers “‘NO!’” In fact, she removes everyone’s equipment and tosses it on the sand. “‘I won’t carry your stuff,’” she says. “‘I just QUIT!’” Just then Paddy O’Possum comes along in his pickup truck and offers to take everyone and their gear to the beach. “Now Harriet felt cheerful, thankful, and calm, / And Joey was happy that she was his mom.” With her baby snuggled into her pouch, Harriet finds a perfect spot where they can unwind and “relax by the sea.”

Following the story are two pages of intriguing facts on the various Australian animals depicted in Harriet Can Carry It.

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Kirk Jay Mueller’s funny story of a too-nice kangaroo whose relaxing beach vacation is hijacked by a meddlesome neighbor will have kids laughing out loud as Harriet acquires more and bigger belongings on her hike to the shore. Mueller’s rhymed verses wonderfully escalate the plot just as Harriet’s pouch grows as the requests mushroom. As each beach-goer hails Harriet in a new way, kids will wonder what could possibly come next and will delight in the repeated phrases that invite participation on their part. The story can also lead to discussions on how to say “No” when needed and also how to resolve issues before they may cause hurt feelings.

Sarah Vonthron-Laver’s vibrant illustrations of Harriet’s neighborhood and the Australian landscape put the focus on kind-hearted Harriet and the animals she meets and enhances the story’s humor. Wanda the Wombat in her star-shaped sunglasses and flowery flip-flops marches ahead, pointing the way, oblivious to Harriet’s woes. The other animals—accurate cartoon representations of their real counterparts—are equally unaware as they hand Harriet their gear. Harriet’s pouch bulges with the beach items as Harriet finds clever ways to accommodate it all.

Harriet Can Carry It makes for a fun story time read and a perfect take-along book for beach outings or any hike.

Ages 4 – 7

Star Bright Books, 2014 | ISBN 978-1595726766

To learn more about Kirk Jay Mueller, his books, and his music—plus to listen to a song about Harriet—visit his website!

You can connect with Sarah Vonthron-Laver on Facebook!

Take a Hike Day Activity

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You Can Carry It! Book Bag

 

True booklovers can’t go anywhere without a book (or two or three) to read along the way. With this easy craft you can turn a cloth bag into a kid-size book bag!

Supplies

  • Printable Templates: Books to Read Template | Books to Love Template
  • Small cloth bag, available from craft or sewing stores—Recyclable Idea: I used the bag that sheet sets now come in
  • Cloth trim or strong ribbon, available from craft or sewing stores—Recyclable Idea: I used the cloth handles from shopping bags provided from some clothing stores
  • Scraps of different colored and patterned cloth. Or use quilting squares, available at craft and sewing stores
  • Pen or pencil for tracing letters onto cloth
  • Scissors
  • Small sharp scissors (or cuticle scissors) for cutting out the center of the letters
  • Fabric glue
  • Thread (optional)
  • Needle (optional)

celebrate-picture-books-picture-book-review-books-bag-craft

Directions

  1. Print the sayings and cut out the letters
  2. Trace letters onto different kinds of cloth
  3. Cut out cloth letters
  4. Iron cloth bag if necessary
  5. Attach words “Books to Read” to one side of bag with fabric glue
  6. Attach words “Books to Love” to other side of bag with fabric glue
  7. Cut cloth trim or ribbon to desired length to create handles
  8. Glue (or sew) handles onto the inside edge of bag

Picture Book Review

November 16 – It’s Global Entrepreneurship Week

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The Most Magnificent Thing by Ashley Spires picture book review

About the Holiday

Do you have a great idea to make the world a better place, a job easier, or life just a little more fun? Then this week is for you! All over the world inventors, thinkers, mentors, universities, and investors collaborate at events, conferences, and competitions to discover new products, creative ideas, and alternate ways of doing things. World leaders from 160 countries and more than 150,000 global organizations work together during this week to improve the lives of all.

The Most Magnificent Thing

By Ashley Spires

 

A little pony-tailed girl and her puppy do everything together. They race, eat, explore, and relax. When she makes things, her best friend unmakes them. One day the girl has a brilliant idea—she is going to make “the most MAGNIFICENT thing!” In her mind it’s going to be “easy-peasy.” She knows exactly how it will look and how it will work. With her faithful assistant following at her heels, the girl gathers materials and goes to work on the sidewalk outside her home.

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Image and text copyright Ashley Spires, courtesy of Kids Can Press

The girl “tinkers and hammers and measures” while her assistant “pounces and growls and chews.” When the little invention is finished, they stand back to examine it. Hmmm…it doesn’t look quite right. It doesn’t feel quite right either. In fact it is all wrong! The girl tries again. She “smooths and wrenches and fiddles” while her assistant “circles and tugs and wags.” It still turns out wrong. Determined to make her vision reality, she gives it another go…and another…and another. She makes her invention different shapes, gives it various textures, measures out assorted sizes. One attempt even smells like stinky cheese! But none of these creations are MAGNIFICENT.

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Image and text copyright Ashley Spires, courtesy of Kids Can Press

People stop by and offer encouraging—even admiring—remarks, but the little girl just gets mad. Can’t they see how wrong her invention is? In her anger the little girl works at a fevered pitch, shoving parts together, her brain fogged by “all the not-right things.” In her haste she hurts her finger. This is the last straw. She explodes and declares that she QUITS!

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Image and text copyright Ashley Spires, courtesy of Kids Can Press

The ever-watchful assistant suggests a bit of fresh air. The girl takes her puppy for a walk and at first her feelings of defeat stay with her. Little by little, though, she pays attention to the world around her and her mind clears. Coming home, she encounters all the wrong things she has made lined up on the sidewalk. Her disappointment threatens to return, but then she notices something surprising—there are parts of each iteration that she likes!

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Image and text copyright Ashley Spires, courtesy of Kids Can Press

After studying each earlier attempt, she knows just what to do! Slowly and carefully she once more begins to tinker. At the end of the day she and her assistant stand back to look. The machine may lean a bit, and be a little heavy, and it may need a coat of paint…but as the girl and her puppy climb aboard, they both agree that “it really is THE MOST MAGNIFICENT THING!”

You are never too young or too old for Ashley Spires’ inspiring and inspired story. The journey from idea to realization—so often fraught with disaster (or apparent disaster)—is depicted here honestly and with humor as the on-going process it is. Step-by-step the little girl thinks, gathers materials, tinkers, discovers, tinkers some more, and triumphs. It is this last step that is so “magnificently” presented—it’s only by not giving up that success can be achieved.

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Image and text copyright Ashley Spires, courtesy of Kids Can Press

Spires’ tale is a delight of language—the girl “smooths, wrenches, fiddles, twists, tweaks, and fastens, pummels, jams, and smashes.” Likewise, her illustrations wonderfully depict the changing emotions of this thoughtful, steely-eyed, shocked, and ultimately thrilled young inventor. Her faithful puppy is a charming companion and foil, and kids will love examining the early inventions that lead up to the final product.

The Most Magnificent Thing is a fabulous book to keep on any child’s or adult’s bookshelf for those times when inspiration hits but achievement seems elusive.

Ages 3 – 7 and up 

Kids Can Press, 2014 | ISBN 978-155453704

Discover more books by Ashley Spires on her website!

Global Entrepreneurship Week Activity

CPB - Inventor's Tool Kit II (2)

Entrepreneur’s Tool Kit

 

Every idea begins as a jumble of seemingly unrelated parts. Gathering whatever types of material inspires you and keeping it in a box ready to go when inspiration hits is a great way to support innovation and spark experimentation.

Supplies

  • Small parts organizer with drawers or compartments, available at hardware stores and craft stores
  • A variety of parts or craft materials that can be combined, built with, or built on
  • Some hardware ideas—pulleys, wheels, small to medium pieces of wood, wire, nuts, bolts, screws, hooks, knobs, hinges, recyclable materials
  • Some craft ideas—clay, beads, wooden pieces, sticks, paints, pipe cleaners, string, spools, buttons, glitter, scraps of material, recyclable materials

Directions

  1. Fill the organizer with the materials of your choice
  2. Let your imagination go to work! Build something cool, crazy, silly, useful—Amazing!

Picture Book Review

November 11 – Veterans Day

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celebrate-picture-books-picture-book-review-anna-and-natalie-cover

About the Holiday

Veterans Day is observed each year on this date to honor and thank all members of the military who are currently serving or have served in the United States Armed Forces. The official ceremony begins at 11:00 a.m. with a wreath laying at the Tomb of the Unknowns and then continues inside the Memorial Amphitheater with a parade of colors by veterans’ organizations and comments by dignitaries. While an official government holiday, some schools remain in session, holding special ceremonies of their own and inviting veterans to relate their experiences.

Anna & Natalie

Written by Barbara H. Cole | Illustrated by Ronald Himler

 

Every year Mrs. Randall’s third-grade class attends the Wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery. What’s more every year four students are chosen from her class to carry the wreath. This year everyone wonders who those lucky four will be. Students who want to be in the running to be selected, Mrs. Randall, says, must write a letter telling her why they should be chosen. Hearing that Freddie and Tommy drop out immediately, while Nancy says her letter will be the best.

Anna dreams of being chosen too, but experience tells her she will not. She’s never chosen for the basketball or softball team, the cheerleading squad, or the lines of Red Rover. “Sure, someone always chose her for the spelling team, but the others—the fun ones—never.” But this time seems different. All day—even though Mrs. Randall’s eagle eyes catch it—Anna daydreams and makes plans. When the bus drops her and her sister off, they hurry home to start work.

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Image copyright Ronald Himler, text copyright Barbara H. Cole. Courtesy of Star Bright Books

There Anna makes a secret call to her grandpa and then she and Natalie go to the front porch, and while Nat naps on the swing Anna pulls out her computer and begins writing her letter to Mrs. Randall. The next day Mrs. Randall collects the letters with the promise to choose the team by tomorrow and a reminder for those who will not be picked: “‘Remember,’” she says, “‘it certainly is an honor to be on the team, but it is also an honor to visit the Tomb.’” Then “they talked about Washington and the monuments and the Capitol and the White House, but especially they talked about the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the Changing of the Guard.”

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Image copyright Ronald Himler, text copyright Barbara H. Cole. Courtesy of Star Bright Books

At school the next day, Mrs. Randall says that while she received four excellent letters, one stood out. She begins to read it to the class: “‘I want to be on the team, not for myself, but for many others who have not been honored or remembered….They worked long and hard and saved many lives….And sometimes they were heroes bigger than the strongest men around. Sometimes they carried medicine and food to dangerous places to save the wounded soldiers. My own great-great-grandfather was in this special service and saved lives. I would like to be on the team to say thank you to those forgotten heroes of World War II. Yours truly…’ Mrs. Randall’s voice cracked and choked, and then she read, ‘From Natalie (with help from Anna)’”

The class starts whooping and cheering, but Mrs. Randall interrupts their celebration to read one more line: “P.S.—Would you please let Anna walk with me so I will not be alone and she won’t be either?” The class begins chanting “Yeah, Anna! Yeah, Anna!,” and Anna can’t believe that her dream of being on the team has come true. When Anna gets home from school and tells her family, they proudly make plans to travel with their “two girls” to the ceremony.

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Image copyright Ronald Himler, text copyright Barbara H. Cole. Courtesy of Star Bright Books

Finally, the day of the Wreath-Laying Ceremony arrives. The students are dressed in their best clothes, and as the four team members prepare to accept the wreath, “Natalie led the procession down the long marble steps, her black coat glistening and her brass buttons shining like the sun. Anna walked beside her.” As the soldier hands the children the wreath fashioned from “dogwood flowers, magnolias, and decorative red birds,” he loudly announces, “The students of Willow Run School and Natalie, a seeing-eye dog, will lay this wreath to honor the men who served in World War II and the dogs who helped them. ATTENTION!”

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Image copyright Ronald Himler, text copyright Barbara H. Cole. Courtesy of Star Bright Books

The clear notes of Taps rang across Arlington National Cemetery as Anna and the three other children lay the wreath in front of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Afterward, Anna’s grandfather and parents took pictures of Anna and Natalie to remember “this shining moment of Anna, and of Natalie, who saw the world that Anna could not see.”

An Author’s Note revealing the use of dogs during wartime—from ancient history to today—follows the text.

Barbara H. Cole’s story of Anna and Natalie is compelling in many ways. First, it presents a look at what Veterans Day means to children from their point of view. Second, the story honors not only the brave soldiers who protect our country but also the canine corps which has served our military from our country’s earliest history. Third, in Anna, Cole has created a character who is part of a military family through her great-great-grandfather and also has a personal connection to service dogs through Natalie, her seeing-eye dog. The portrayal of Anna as a child with a disability is honest and inclusive, and while the fact of Anna’s blindness is contained in a surprise ending, this serves to present Anna as just another student in the class—a girl who is an excellent writer, enthusiastic about her dreams to be part of the team, and a good friend.

celebrate-picture-books-picture-book-review-anna-and-natalie-classroom

Image copyright Ronald Himler, text copyright Barbara H. Cole. Courtesy of Star Bright Books

Cole’s straight narration of a school day and a special assignment—complete with asides from students—as well as Anna’s family life creates an environment that will be familiar to readers and carries the story in a natural arc.

Ronald Himler’s realistic illustrations of Anna’s Willow Run School, her home, and Arlington Cemetery beautifully represent this moving story. His pages are full of diverse, real kids, smiling, laughing, getting off the school bus, enjoying a family dinner, and solemnly performing their job at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. A hint to Natalie’s true identity is subtly inserted into various scenes, making the final reveal a satisfying moment.

Anna & Natalie is a wonderful choice for all kids observing Veterans Day, Memorial Day, and other patriotic holidays.

Ages 5 – 10

Star Bright Books, 2010 | ISBN 978-1595722119

To learn more about Anna & Natalie and download a Curriculum Guide, visit Star Bright Books!

To view a gallery of artwork and picturebook illustration by Ronald Himler, visit his website!

Veterans Day Activity

celebrate-picture-books-picture-book-review-american-flag-and-wreath

Wreath and American Flag Coloring Page

 

Remember everything our members of the Armed Forces do to keep our country safe as you color this printable Wreath and American Flag.

Picture Book Review