Llama Llama Misses Mama

By Anna Dewdney

Fans of the Llama books, Llama Llama Red Pajama and Llama Llama Mad at Mama will be happy to learn that there is a new story about little Llama. In this new story, Llama is going off to kindergarten for the first time and is unsure about being away from Mama for a whole day. The other animal children in the classroom work to involve Llama in all of their activities. By the end Llama is having lots of fun and of course Mama does come back to take Llama home.

Trainstop

By Barbara Lehman

Lehman is well known for her wordless books that encourage readers to use their imaginations to enter parallel or unusual worlds that collide with each other. This newest title is about a girl who is gazing out the windows of the train she is riding. The train makes a stop and as she is looking out the window she sees tiny people near the train. She exits the train and at the beckoning of the miniature people helps to save a tiny pilot who has become stuck in a tree. The girl reboards the train and wonders if the whole experience is a dream. But at the end she finds something that makes her believe it really happened.

Yay! It's spring and new books are popping up all over

Despite what the snowy weather is trying to tell us spring is here, so here are a few fun new spring books to check out...

Wee Little Lamb by Lauren Thompson

A shy new baby lamb meets all sorts of other animals but only wants to stay near its mama. Finally the little lamb meets the perfect friend and the two play together, but make sure to stay near their mamas.

Butterfly, Butterfly A Book of Colors by Petr Horacek

A little girl discovers a beautiful butterfly fluttering around her garden one day. But the next day she can't find the butterfly anywhere. The girl looks everywhere and finds all sorts of other colorful bugs but not the butterfly. When she finally lays down to rest and looks up at the sky she sees her butterfly flying by. The last page is a beautiful pop-up butterfly.

2009 Caldecott Winner and Honors

This year's Caldecott Winner is the book The House in the Night by Susan Marie Swanson with illustrations by Beth Krommes.

Serene illustrations accompany this gentle rhyming book about getting ready for bed. The text is builds on itself begining with the key to the house and then goes on to name other bedtime objects, such as the bed, a book, and a light. Even theough the illustrations are mostly black the touches of yellow throughout add warmth to the pictures. This would be a wonderful, calming story to share at bedtime.


The Caldecott Honor books for this year are:



How I Learned Geography written and illustrated by Uri Shulevitz

Shulevitz shares a story from his own life about a time his father brought home a map and hung it on the wall. The young Uri looked at remote places on this map and was transported to wonderful exotic places in his immagination. These imaginary trips helped him get through difficult times during WWII.


A Couple of Boys Have the Best Week Ever written and illustrated by Marla Frazee

Two boys spend one week in the summer together doing the things they love, they are supposed to be spending a lot of time outside but wind up playing video games mostly. In the end they do find a creative way to play outside.

A River of Words: The Story of William Carlos Williams by by Jen Bryant with illustrations by Melissa Sweet

Beautiful collage illustrations help tell about the life of poet William Carlos Williams in this biography written in a poetic lryical style.

Fall Leaves

Before winter arrives (even though it is snowing today it's still technically fall), here is a fun leaf craft to try at home...

Supplies Needed:

• Green construction paper leaf (tracing a real leaf works great)
  
• Yarn
  
• Tissue paper in fall colors
  
• glue sticks
• glitter or glitter glue (optional)
  

Steps to Making the craft:

1. Punch a hole in the top of the leaf, string the yarn through, and knot it
   
2. Child glues tissue paper to leaf so it looks like a colorful fall leaf (feel free to do both sides)
3. If desired add glitter to the leaf to for a little extra sparkle!
   

Before making the leaf craft take a walk with your child and look at all the fun fall colors. Notice how some leaves stay green longer than others. Ask your child to tell you what colors he or she sees. Collect some leaves to take back home. These can be used to trace different shaped leaves onto the construction paper and also as inspiration for ways to mix the tissue paper colors together to create a multi-colored fall leaf. Share a fall book with your child. There's a fun one you can read right here on "Booking for a Look" in the previous post!

Pictures soon to follow...

Check out a book--Online!

Have you heard of Lookybook.com? It's a great website where you can look at the entire content of children's books on your computer. It's so much fun and we wanted to share one with you. So since Fall is underway here's a fun fall book to enjoy:

Leaf Jumpers by Carole Gerber. Two children play in the colorful leaves they find in this rhyming text. Readers will also learn how to identify the various types of leaves that fall from the trees.

Just click on the cover below to read the full text of the book on your screen.

If you want to see the book in a larger window click on the little eyes in the upper right corner, you will be redirected to the Looky Book website.

Watch for more featured Looky Books in the future...

Celebrate Twins Day with a New Book!

One of our favorite authors for children, Andrew Clements, has written a great new story...all about twins!

Simon & Schuster

Although it's a drag to be constantly mistaken for each other, in truth, during those first days at a new school, there's nothing better than having a twin brother there with you. But on day one of sixth grade, Ray stays home sick, and Jay is on his own. No big deal. It's a pretty nice school, good kids, too. But Jay quickly discovers a major mistake: No one seems to know a thing about his brother. Ray's not on the attendance lists, doesn't have a locker, doesn't even have a student folder. Jay almost tells the school -- almost -- but then decides that this lost information could be very...useful. And fun.
As Ray and Jay exploit a clerical oversight, they each find new views on friendship, honesty, what it means to be a twin -- and what it means to be yourself. Entertaining, thought-provoking, and true-to-life, this clever novel is classic Andrew Clements times two: twins!

More 50 Fabulous Books

Everyone knows dogs are supposed to bark.

But what do you do with a dog that just sits there?

Or worse, makes other animal sounds? Bark George

is about a dog that acts so strange he is sent to the vet

to determine what's wrong.

Where the Wild Things Are is the classic

Caldecott about a boy who has quite an imagination

and explores a place with all things imaginable.