Elsina's Clouds - Jeanette Winter

Frances Foster Bks, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004
O-O-P, found in the library
32 pages
Endpapers: Four squares coming out of each other, filled with colorful African designs

This book is about the "Basotho women of southern Africa." My research shows that Basotho is a part of South Africa, perhaps in and around the area of modern-day Lesotho. I'll have to look into this a little more.

Jeanette Winter shares the custom of the Basotho women painting their houses as messages to their ancestors to bring the rain. A nameless young girl paints the addition to her family abode that will house her soon-to-be-arriving baby sibling. She goes to bed at night and dreams about the rain coming to moisten her mother's crops.

This is the third time I've read that it's the WOMEN who plan, plant, care for, and sow the crops in many parts of Africa.

As always, I love Jeanette Winter's bordered, colorful, simple-yet-detailed illustrations. The story in this book, however, was a little too simple. I wanted more....more information....more about the symbolism of the painting, more about the paints themselves. Oh well. Can't have it all every time.

This would make a good companion book to Gugu's House by Catherine Stock, which is also about an African woman who paintis her house with decorations and waits until the rain washes it away so she can begin again.

Ten Rowdy Ravens - Susan Ewing

Illustrated by Evon Zerbetz
Alaska Northwest Books, 2005
$15.95
32 pgs.
For: kids a bit older than the usual "counting book" age...
Rating: 4.5
Endpapers: Large purple and lavender squares with numbers and cutouts of ravens

First of all, this book is just gorgeous. The illustrations are from carved linoleum prints that are then hand-colored. They're beautfiul. And secondly, the word choices, the alliteration, the writing is clever and deosn't talk down to kids.

"Eight rougish ravens
Pilfer piles of loot,
Cheater swipes some pretty pearls,
Seven give pursuit."

"Five unruly ravens
Gobble up chop suey
Noodles make a bellyache,
Now there's four. Aw, phooey!"

That was a lot of alliterative "r" adjectives! And at the end of the book, a 7-page "Daily Kaw", True News from Around the Raven World, that includes true stories of mischievous ravens, information about these trickster birds, and even "Corvid Classifieds" - all done with superb humor.

I went through a second time for a really close examination of the illustrations. Fantastic!

One Red Apple - Harriet Ziefert

Illustrated by Karla Gudeon
Blue Apple Books, 2009
$16.99
32 pages (one flips up)
Rating: 5
Endpapers: small apples, bees, bluebirds, cores, leaves on a pale brown background

Oh-oh-oh. This is beautiful!

Simple. Thoughtful. G-O-R-G-E-O-U-S illustrations. A five through and through.

The story shows an apple being picked from a tree, trucked to market, bought at a farm stand, and eaten. It shows birds eating the apple core, leftover seeds being scattered and planted randomly. The seed germinates and sprouts - grows to a big tree (here we flip up the page to see it all) and sprouts beautiful pink blossoms. And then it's time to pick the fruit and watch the cycle begin again.

On the back jacket flap it shows another book by this writer and illustrator - Hanukkah Haiku!
It also states that Karla Gudeon's art is displayed in galleries around the U. S. I wonder where?

NOTE: A Great book to read to young kids each October before going apple picking!

Fox Walked Alone - Barbara Reid

First published in Canada, 2006
Albert Whitman & Company, 2009
32 pgs
$16.99
For: Kids
Rating: 4.5 (Very cool illustrations, clever rhyming)
Endpapers: Lt. blue

Canadian author Barbara Reid creates scrumption pictures using plasticine clay. (Check out her website, which includes a couple of YouTube videos where you can watch her in action!) Told in rhyme, we accompany Fox, who, buy himself, joins pairs of animals on some sort of journey. Along the way they come to an abandoned city, where Fox frees a pair of doves. More and more pairs of animals join, until they arrive at a huge ark, where Noah waits for them. Here, Fox is joined by another fox that has been waiting for him. Cute and clever. The illustrations are amazing - especially after you watch Ms. Reid create them! She has a new book out, Perfect Snow, which I hope will be available in the U.S.

Ma Dear's Old Green House - Denise Lewis Patrick

Illustrated by Sonia Lynn Sadler
Just Us Books, Inc., 2004
Ages 5-8
Rating: 4
Endpapers: Olive

The illustrations are what called me to this book. Actually, they hollered. They remind me of batik. It says they're done with scratchboard and acrylic and that Sadler's paintings are exhibited in galleries all over the U.S. I've gotta check this out! They're exceptionally cool.

In this memoir, Patrick tells of fun-filled summers with her cousins at her grandmother's house on a hill in Louisiana.

What a great model for memoir writing for kids - and turning the final copy into a picture book.

Book Fiesta - Pat Mora

Celebrate Children's Day/Book Day
Celebremos El dia de los ninos/El dia de los libros
Illustrated by Rafael Lopez
2009
Rating: 5 for the Illustrations alone!
$17.99
Endpapers: Wow. Front: Sleeping on a Cloud, Waking on a moon, sun is rising....COLOR!
Back: Closer-up, moon smiling down at boy reading on cloud, nighttime's coming....

This book celebrates reading. It celebrates books. It celebrates story. And it celebrates family. It covers the world. It shows the southwest strongly (love it!). It rhymes. It's written in English and in Spanish. It's colorful.

"We read libros together in cars/ and planes/ and trains. We read to our puppies and kittens, and to lizards in our yard./We read riding an elephant/or sailing with a whale./ We read in a long submarine/ or floating in a hot-air balloon./ Then, snug in our beds, we read to the moon/ and fly away in our books. Toon! Toon!"

I want to have a Book Fiesta in my classroom....in my school.....NEXT YEAR! At the back of the book Pat Mora give information and many suggestions to celebrate and annual "Dia" Children & Books Day. Take her up on it!

All in a Day - Cynthia Rylant

Illustrated by Nikki McClure (with unbelievable paper cuts)
2009
$17.95
Rating: 4 (A hard book to rate. Does it work as a book? It works as a poem, and the illustrations are A+, but will it appeal to a child?)

Ten years ago, when traveling south from Maine, I routed us through West Virginia so that I could see where Cynthia Rylant "came from." Well, we went in the middle of July when everything is green and beautiful, and, as a tourist, I saw mainly touristy things - but I now love West Virginia. I've been back twice, and would love to go again. I really loved Cynthia Rylant's words. I loved her poetry and stories for young adults. Since then she's written many verses and stories that have become picture books, and I haven't been quite as excited over many of them as her previous/first work. I read them all, though!

This simple poem says so much. The illustations look so simple, but, oh my! They are paper cuts! ! ! Simply amazing. Alternating double page spreads of pale blue, black and white, with bright yellow, black, and white, are STUNNING. How can anoyone do this?

So many wasy to incorporate this into my classroom next year! I think I'll read the poem as a poem, without the illustrations. Then I'll show them the illustrations. Then I think we'll divide the poem into the number of kids in the class, with each designing their own class. Paper cuts will be encourage, or a mixture of papers cuts with other media - water color, particularly.

It would also make a wonderful whole-group activity as one of the sessions for our school's annual Passport to Peace!

A day is a perfect piece of time
to live a life,
to plant a seed,
to watch the sun go by.
A day starts early,
work to do,
beneath a brand-new sky.
A day brings hope
and kindness, too...
a day is all its own.
You can make a wish,
and start again,
you can find your way back home.
Every bird and every tree
and every living thing
loves the promise in a day,
loves what it can bring. (Gorgeous page!)
There is a faith in morningtime,
there is belief in noon.
Evening will come whispering
and shine a bright round moon.
A day can change just everything,
given half a chance.
Rain could show up at our door
and teach you how to dance.
The past is sailing off to sea,
the future's fast asleep.
A day is all you have to be,
it's all you get to keep.
Underneath that great big sky
the earth is all a-spin.
This day will soon e over
and it won't come back again.
So live it well, make it count,
fill it up with you.
The day's all yours, its waiting now...
See what you can do.

An Artist's America - Michael Albert

For: All ages
Published: 2008
Rating : 5 YES! My kind of book...
48 pgs.
17.95
Endpapers: Med. Blue

Mosaic collagees from recycled consumer product boxes and labels - cereal, tea, cookies, popsicles, soup. Easy. Pop art. Very cool.

Told in the first person, Michael Albert tells about his artistic journey, detailing how he got to where he is now. He shows dozens of his works,explaining the whys and hows. Flags made from Coca-Cola and Frosted Flakes boxes, cutting and pasting a postcard of the Empire State Building. Slightly reaearranging pieces of a Frosted Flakes box; Cheerios and Trix, Captain Crunch and A to Z candy wrappers and even dollar bills! He then shows his "epic works" which are really creative, fascinating and time-consuming, including the Gettysburg Address, the Pledge of Allegiance, and a Mt. Rushmore made of Mr Clean, the Quaker Oats guy, Captain Crunch, and Colonel Sanders. He's even done a collage of the first 190 digits of Pi!

At the end of the book he shows his workshops with kids and simply tells how to do it yourself.

This book is a real winner. I want to see some of his originals! www.michaelalbert.com

Winter in White - Robert Sabuda

A Mini Pop-Up Treat
Published: 2007
Small, 4 X 6 size
Metallic aqua cover

When snowflakes sprinkle (3 silver-tipped flakes)
Welcoming winter (snowman)
A silent hush of snowy white (angel)
Making deep, dark forests bright (antlered reindeer)
Gliding through glistening chill (twirling skater)
Sliding down smooth frosty hills (sled & rider)
Blanketing trees with downy drifts (evergreen with metallic gold star & balls)
Bringing peaceful sounds of nature's gifts. (2 doves unwrapping a package)

This WAS a pop-up treat. It made me remember years ago, when I was an Ozette in Oz Children's Bookstore in Southwest Harbor, Maine, two women who came in one afternoon. They collected pop-up books...had a huge collection....and referred to a big notebook to see whether they could find any new books for their collection. They did. I'd forgotten that completely until I remembered, for some reason, when I was reading this book. Ahh, the human brain.

This book is quite a work of art. And I love the snazy verbs!

What Darwin Saw - Rosalyn Schanzer

The Journey That Changed the World
National Geographic Society
For: grades 3/4 and up
48 pgs.
Rating: 5
Published: 2009
Read: Feb. 25, 2009 B&N
Endpapers: Forest Green
Really attractive cover - I'd love a poster of this book, also the "family tree" of the evolutionary theory (p. 39) is poster-worthy

This appears to be a well-researched book. Charles Darwin (1809-1882) set off in 1831, at the age of 22, on a 5-year voyage around the world. He traveled with Captain Roert FitzRoy on The Beagle , obtaining specimens and recording observations for an amazing amount of species that no one in Europe had ever seen. Along the coast of South America, past the tip and up to the Galapagos Islands, across to Tahiti - we are his companions as he smells and survives - riding with gauchos on the pampas, watching volcanos erupt, feeling earthquakes shake, eating exotic cuisine and taking in the world. We see dinosaur bones and giant iguanas and unique shells and exotic flowers.

The last part of the book tells of his arrival back in England, his further studies and writing, his family, and how he shared his reasearch with the world. Pgs. 46-47 show a world map detailing his voyage.

Illustrated beautifully. Written in graphic format, with what looks like his own words - if so he was a great writer, using cool, sophisticated (but understandable) vocabulary. Sidebars with additional information keep the story flowing. Great book - I want to read it again. And even if you find yourself in the midst of the controversy about science vs. faith, this is a wonderful biography of a world-famous scientist.

"Forests and flowers and birds I saw in great perfection. If the eye attempts to follow the flight of a gaudy butterfly, it is arrested by some strange tree or fruit; if watching an insect one forgets it in the stranger flower it is crawling over." Mmm, mmm good.

The Black Book of Colors - Menena Cottin

Illustrator: Rosana Faria
Tranlated by Elisa Amado
Both author and illustrator are from Venezuela
For: Any and all
Publilshed: 2006
Rating: 5
Read: October, 2008, many times
Endpapers; Black - as they should be.

What an incredible premise. A picture book written to be touched. Black as a-night-with-no-moon pages. Short white font in the lower left is all we SEE. The rest we have to feel.

Above the one-sentence of text is the sentence written in braille. And then, the entire facing page is a raised illustration...an illustration to be touched. "Thomas says that yellow tastes like mustard, but is as soft as a baby chick's feathers." Fliuffy feathers float across the facing page, lovely to see when you can get the light just right, and SO difficult for the unaccustomed, desensitised fingers to feel. "Red is sour like unripe strawberries and as sweet as watermelon. It hurts when he finds it on his scraped knee." A huge, plump strawberry attached to its vine, with two smaller strawberries as well. "Brown crunches under his feel like fall leaves. Sometimes it smells like chocolate, and other times it stinks."

The last page is the braille alphabet. I cannot feel these dots. It all feels the same to me. How do people do it? This is one of the most thought-provoking picture books I've read in a long time.

The House in the Night - Susan Marie Swanson

Illustrator: Beth Krommes
For: Very young kids
Pub: 2008
Rating: Lovely/ 4
Read: Sept. 14, 2008
Endpapers: The same bright yellow which are the only illustration color other than black and white
2009 Caldecott WINNER ! ! !

This is a lovely bedtime book!

Black and white scratchboard, accented with a bright yellow...gorgeous.

The House in the Night is one of those cumulative books in the House that Jack Built vein. Here is the key to the house./ In the house burns a light./ In that light rests a bed./ On that bed rests a book....and onward, out throught the starry darkness to the moon ... and back, to find the child asleep in the bed. MmmmmmHmmmmm.

Turn! Turn! Turn! - Pete Seeger

Illustrator: Wendy Anderson Halperin
For: Kids
Pub: 2003
Rating: 4/5
Finished : Aug. 11, 2008
includes CD with two songs

Last year, while creating curriculum for fifth graders on the literature of ancient Israel, I decided to find readings from the Old Testament and teach them using a musical approach. I remembered the Byrds' song Turn! Turn! Turn! and have found two picture books depicting it. In 1961, Pete Seeger took the words from Ecclesiastes, originally written in 250 BCE and translated into English in London in 1607, and set them to music. Wendy Anderson Halperin takes those words and creates a double page spread to illustrate each coupling of verse. All illustrations are contained within a huge circle and drawn using watercolors. BEAUTIFULLY drawn. I poured over each of them, looking at details and admiring Halperin's vision for each of the phrases. There was one drawback for me, however. To be able to view each illustration correctly, I had to keep turning the book this way and that, upside-down and sideways. It's a fairly large book with a dustcover, and it started to drive me crazy. Otherwise, it was quite lovely.

There is a full page note in the back of the book from Pete Seeger, explaining how he created this now-very-popular song. Sheet music is included, as well a CD that contains Pete Seeger's version along with the Byrd's slightly different one. It's fun to see the difference and listen to both sets of voices sing this song.