Ten Things I Love About You - Daniel Kirk

Illustrated by the author

2013 Nancy Paulsen Books/Penguin

HC $16,99

32 pages

Goodreads rating: 3.70

My rating: 4

Endpapers: blue & white illustrations of the path from Rabbit's house to Pig's house (and the surroundings)

Illustrations: Wide brown frames around pages - simple - made to look like crayon lines (or maybe they are!)
Title Page: Same wide brown frame, single page with Rabbit sitting on the floor, writing.

1^st line/s:
     Ring!
     Ring!
     Hello Pig,
     Hello Rabbit,
     Look at this ---
     I am making a list!

My comments:  A sweet keeper-of-a-book.  A book, actually, to give a friend!

Goodreads: Fans of Mo Willems' Elephant and Piggie will enjoy Rabbit and Pig’s clever back-and-forth which shows the funny ways friends bounce ideas and feelings off each other.
      Rabbit just adores his friend Pig. So he is excited to make a list of all the things he loves about Pig. And who better to help him write the list than Pig himself? But Pig is busy, and keeps sending Rabbit away. But no matter what Pig does, Rabbit is inspired to add another thing to his list. When Pig says, “Rabbit, I'm starting to lose my patience!” Rabbit has #6—“I love Pig because he’s not afraid to show his feelings!” Fortunately, Pig’s dwindling patience is rewarded when Rabbit completes his list—and the two realizeexactly why they are such good pals.

3. Hereville - Barry Deutsch

How Mirka Got Her Sword
A graphic novel
Amulet Books, 2010
HC $15.95
For: Middle Grades
142 pgs.
Rating: 5

Now here’s a winner. The first graphic novel I’ve really enjoyed…enjoyed enough to finish, too! Hereville is a fairy tale, set solidly in an Orthodox Jewish community somewhere in contemporary America. However, it could have been set just about anywhere. It is isolated and totally Orthodox. Residents speak Yiddish and Hebrew, words are sprinkled thorough the story. The translations are thoughtfully stuck onto the bottom of the page, but most of the text is in English.

Clever. Funny. Fun. And even educational, when it comes to learning about Orthodox Judaism. I can’t even begin to go into the plot, which is multi-layered. The protagonist, Mirka, is one of nine children in a blended family. She respects and cares about her stepmother, Fruma, who is wise and my favorite character in the book. Mirka has studied monsters, she keeps a hidden book about them under her mattress. It his her great desire to become a dragon slayer. She has a younger brother, Zindel, who spends much time with her, and a stepsister, Rochel, who seems wise beyond her years.

The characters, including a huge talking pig, a witch that lives in a nearby house just discovered, and a knitting troll are wonderful. Fresh, believable, fun, and funny. Adventurous, animated, well-illustrated, clear…a wonderful book!

Barry Deutsch has a Hereville BLOG that he writes almost every day. It’s fun.

Stephen Frug has a blog that reviews Hereville beautifully and thoroughly. So does the Bob Hayes Online blog. So I'd suggest reading one (or both) of those for more in-depth information about the plot.

Mercy Watson Thinks Like Pig - Kate DiCamillo

#5 Mercy Watson series
illustrated by Chris VanDusen
Candlewick Press, 2008
HC $12.99
74 pages
Rating: Ella "loved it"

A lot goes on in the fifteen short chapters in this book. Eugenia Lincoln, Mercy's next door neighbor, is still unhappy to be living so close to a pig. So she decides to plant pansies to "live a gracious life." Well.......when Mercy discovers these delicious delicacies, she decides to eat them, one by one. Imagine Eugenia's horror!

Eugenia has had it. To her sister Baby's horror, she decides to call Animal Control. And we meet a new character - Animal Control Officer Francine Poulet, who sets out to find the pig. In the meantime, Mercy has gone to Stella and Frank's house for a tea party. Imagine her disdain when she discovers that tea parties have IMAGINARY food!

Packed with humor and some of the best illustrations ever, this fifth story in the Mercy Watson series is delightful. Fun. and very, very funny. A winner.

BAXTER, the Pig Who Wanted to Be Kosher - Laurel Snyder

Illustrated by David Goldin
Tricycle Press, 2010
$15.99
32 pages
Rating: 5
Endpapers: Kosher dill pickles, sliced lengthwise, on a white background

This book is funny. This book is clever. This book has a great message. Can you tell I really, really like this book?

Baxter the pig is waiting at a bus stop when the bearded, kippah-wearing gentleman sitting beside him says he can't wait for sundown and the Shabbat meal, which includes gleaming candles, singing, and the people that he loves most. Well, Baxter thinks this sounds wonderful and wants to be part of it. But he is told that since he's a pig - he can't be part of a Shabbat meal! He's not kosher! So through a series of misunderstandings and how-do-you-become-kosher inquiries, we follow Baxter through ups and downs to a Shabbat meal.

What fun! This is delightful. And the illustrations are great - whimsical and different. David Goldin uses collage and hand drawing. Fabrics, pickle bottles, foods, candlesticks, piano...are photos, collaged in. It's fun just to look for what's collaged and what's drawn. The piece de resistance, though, is Baxter. His facial expressions are superb!

This is a new favorite. I'm reading a library copy, but this one I must get for myself....and for my school library.

Laurel Snyder's website. (I enjoyed this. She sounds pretty cool.)
I can't get David Goldin's website to work. Well, I THINK it's his website, it's hard to tell for 100% certainty. But I'll keep checking on it.

She is Too Fond of Books review.
Jewish Books for Children's short interview with Laurel Snyder
And here's a longer inverview with Laurel Snyder

The Water Gift and the Pig of the Pig - Jacqueline Briggs Martin

Illustrated by Linda S. Wingerter
Houghton Mifflin, 2003
32 pages
Rating: 4
Endpapers: light blue

Set in Waldo County, Maine, this is the story of a girl named Isabel who lives with her grandparents. Her grandfather is a water man. He was a sailor until he married and settled down and is a gifted dowser. His divining rod is a Y-shaped stick. He finds more than water, he finds lost animals, too.

When he feels he has lost his touch, and when the family's pet pig goes missing, Isabel discovers that she, too, has the water gift.

Illustrations are framed with a thin black line and a white border. They are really lovely and depict rural Maine and the seacoast perfectly.

Bot the author and illustrator grew up in Maine. They've given this book the right feel.

Mercy Watson Fights Crime - Kate DiCamillo

Illustrated by Chris Van Dusen
#3 Mercy Watson series
Candlewick, 2006
74 pgs.
For: ages 6-8
Rating: 5

Now here's a series where a clever, funny story and very clever, comical illustrations work together perfectly. Just perfectly. Such characters! Such humor. Great fun.

Mercy Watson, a pig, a plain old non-talking, food-loving pig, lives with Mr. and Mrs. Watson in her own room with her own bed. She loves to eat and sleep and ... well, that's about it, I guess. But what an adventure she unwittingly gets herself into.

Tiny Leroy Ninker, who wants to be a cowboy but is a robber, breaks into the Watson kitchen. He steals the toaster, the clock, and various other kitcheny items until Mercy hears the toaster sliding across the counter and thinks someone is preparing toast with butter. She discovers that no one is, so she falls asleep in front of the getaway door. When Leroy begins to step over her, she awakens and takes him for a Yippee-I-Oh ride across the lawn, waking up two old-lady sisters next door.

Hilarious and fun. Last week when I was in Maine, my granddaughter, Ashley, and I went into the Briar Patch children's bookstore in Bangor. (Wow, more on that later...) Her immediate choice of a new book was the newest Mercy Watson, #6, that has just been published. She said that Chris Van Dusen (the illustrator) had come to visit her school and she'd read other books in the series. Ashley's somewhat of a reluctant reader, so this was a very happy discovery for me. A very worthwhile, happy discovery. I want to get to know more of these characters - especially Baby and Eugenia Lincoln, the two elderly sisters who live next door.

Hogwood Steps Out - Howard Mansfield

A Good, Good Pig Story
Illustrator: Barry Moser
2008
Rating: 5
For: Kids
Endpapers: Orange

Hogwood is a huge black and white pig. He's tired of spending winter in the barn and smells spring outside. Mud. Mud. He's smart and he's figured out how to open the gate. It's time to go find gardens with good things to eat and it's time to find mud with its great smell and so much squishiness to roll around in. But the neighbors are not happy about this, and he is captured and returned to his barn, as he has been many times before.

The illustrations are what drew me to the book - it's a perfect blend of text and visual.

I'm going to share this with my 7th grade class - we're reading Animal Farm and talk every day about pigs! Very cute.

The Three Pigs - David Wiesner

2002 Caldecott Award
Published: 2001
Rating: 4
$16.00
Endpapers: light brown

We start out with the well-known tale of the three little piga - but as the wolf starts to blow the house of bricks, the pigs all escape from the page of the book and some of the pages fall out! Deciding to explore, they turn one of the pages into a paper airplane, climb on to it, and take off --- and crash. They run through other fairy tales, helping a dragon who's about to be slayed, escape. He joins them in their search for home until they find the pages and climb back inside. Ahh! The story is now able to end, and when the wolf tries to blow the brick house in, he encounters the dragon!

Cute pigs. Cute story.