Cats Night Out - Carolyn Stutson

A Foot-Tapping, Finger Snapping Counting Book
Illustrated by J. Klassen
Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster, 2010
$15.99
ages 4-8
32 pgs.
Endpapers: Mustard

This sing-songy musical book is catchy and fun and uses great words. In twos, and adding more and more at each turn of the page, pairs of cats dance. It becomes a counting book that counts by 2's!

"Six cats tango in red capes....up and down the fire escapes."
"Sixteen rumba in the dark, twitching silk bottoms through the park."

We see cats doing the samba, boogying, tap dancing, line-dancing, doing the twist, fox-trotting, doing the polka, the conga, and even the waltz...until neighbors complain.

The illustrations are dark - it's night after all - in numerous shades of browns and creams with just a subtle touch of pink and pinky red here and there. No white.

Exceptionally cool book.
I want to read it aloud!

Katy and the Big Snow - Virginia Lee Burton

Houghton Mifflin, 1943/1971
Brand new paperback edition has sparkly cover and STICKERS!
$6.99 paper
40 pages
My rating: 5

Virginia Lee Burton's picture books - over sixty years old - are stiill being published! The Little House, Mike Mulligan, Katy - this is incredibly cool, huh? And after reading Katy and the Big Snow again (it's been an incredibly long time) I know why.

There's a wavy border on every page. There's a compass rose on any page that shows the city of Geopolis. There are maps. There's excitement. There's a hero (heroine!)....

When a blizzard covers the city of Geopolis, big, strong Katy the bulldozer-with-a-plough is called out to help (to the rescue!)

The illustrations are primarily in aqua with black, red, yellow, green. and white as the only other touches of color. They're "old fashioned" and incredibly wonderful.

Little Blue Truck Leads the Way - Alice Schertle

Illustrated by Jill McElmurry
Harcourt Children's, 2009
$16.00
40 pages
Rating: 5
Endpapers: rust

This book really works for me. Visually, I love it. Great size - perhaps 10 x 8. Color tones that really appeal, not too bright, not too washed out. Illustrations completely cover the page - the text is incorporated really nicely into the illustrations. The vehicles themselves have great personality. There are different views of the city from above, from WAY above, from the road, eye-to-eye. The city is depicted the way that I think of it - this could be Boston or New York...

The story is of a little blue pickup; small, old, and out-of-place in the hustle and bustle of the big city. When the pushy limousine that's driving the mayor breaks down, the little blue pickup gives him a lift. And then he teaches the push and shove, me-first crowd to chill out, be thoughtful, and enjoy life a little. At least this is my take. I liked it a great deal, on many levels.

It looks like there's another book about Blue that's already come out - Little Blue Truck. Gonna have to find it!

City I Love - Lee Bennett Hopkins

Poetry
Illustrated by Marcellus Hall
Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2009
$16.95
32 pgs.
For: K-4- lots of examining and things to figure out
Rating: 4
Endpapers: map of the world with 18 cities labeled

Eighteen poems that are using eighteen cities around the world as their showpiece. All of the poems could really be for any city, but if you examine the illustration and check out the world map on the endpapers, you can figure out which one is being denoted. Works for me!

I like Lee Bennett Hopkins poems. I don't usually love them. And I like these. At first I wasn't sure if I liked the illustrations, but then I looked at the detail and liked them more and more. There's a very cool backpacking, traveling dog (check him out on the cover) that appears somewhere on every page, and I found I was looking for him first. Then I was looking for clues as to which city was being depicted. This ended up being a really delightful book. First impressions aren't always the right ones!

Mother’s Plea

Silence sirens.
Hush all horns.
Quiet rumbling
traffic roars.
Please
city
have
some
pity.
Promise me
not
one
more
beep?
My newborn
pigeons
need
their
sleep.