Picture Book - Cyril and Pat by Emily Gravett

Illustrated by the author

2018, Great Britain Simon & Schuster

HC $17.99

32 pgs.

Goodreads rating:  

My rating:  5
Endpapers: solid bright yellow

1^st line/s:  "Lake Park only had one squirrel,
all alone and sad (poor Cyril).
Until the morning he met Pat,
his new best friend, a big gray ..."

My comments:Great story and great illustrations!!  Written mostly in sets of couplets and full of humor with lots to look at in each illustration.  And what a great message - you can be friends with ANYONE!!!

Goodreads:  Cyril is the only squirrel in Lake Park, and he's very lonely. Until one day he meets Pat – Pat the big, grey . . . other squirrel. Cyril and Pat have lots of adventures and fun together and Cyril is so pleased he's made a friend. But everyone is adamant that Cyril and Pat simply cannot be friends, and they soon reveal why: Pat, as the reader has known all along, is actually a RAT!
          But Cyril's life turns out to be a lot duller and quite a bit scarier without Pat by his side, and in the end the two friends learn that some things are more important than being the same, or listening to others.          Cyril and Pat is a richly colourful, rhyming romp through the park from the CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal-winning Emily Gravett. 

22. The Night Fairy - Laura Amy Schlitz

Illustrated by Angela Barrett
For: Kids of all ages
Candlewick, 2010
$16.99
122 pgs.
This one's a five
Endpapers: Sparkly, metallicy dark blue...mmmmhhhhmmmm.

Laura Amy Schlitz wrote the wonderful, Newbury Award-winning book Good Masters, Sweet Ladies! so I was thrilled to see her new book...so thrilled that I didn't want to wait until the library FINALLY got it (in about six months, probably). So I splurged. I read it aloud to one of my fourth grade classes. No matter how antsy they were (it was the very end of the day), they settled down immediately to listen. Boys and girls alike, they were all entranced by this feistly fairy.

Flory is a night fairy. Shortly after her birth, when she is off on her own, a bat, thinking she's a bug, nips at her so that she loses her wings. Just learning her magic skills and now, wingless, she has to figure out how to survive. She lands in an elderly lady's backyard. This "giant" tends lovingly to her garden, feeds the birds, and has lovely plantings of all sorts. So Flory makes her new home in a birdhouse. She cleverly furnishes it, makes begrudging friends with an always-hungry squirrel so she can have occasional transportation, and builds a new life for herself in this backyard. The story takes a bit of a turn when Flory discovers a hummingbird trapped in the sticky web of a spider.

Flory is not a sweet fairy. She uses her wiles to survive. But her true depth emerges as the story travels quickly along. This book made a great read-aloud. The kids enjoyed it greatly. The writing is exquisite. I'm not a big FAIRY person, to say the least, but I could read this over and over just for the gorgeous writing.

"She soon found that her body did not like the day. Her skin liked to be cool and moist, not hot and dry. When the shadows fell, her whole body itched with alertness, and she found it hard to sleep. Sunshine made her eyes water, which made her irritable, but Flory could not help herself. She missed her wings, and she had to make a whole new life for herself, with no one to show her how."

Oh, I must not forget the illustrations. Every ten or fifteen pages there's a full-page color, finely crafted illustration. Some are a little dark, but the kids were fascinated with the detail. Each chapter title is also illustrated with a blue and black silhouette that created much discussion and predictions. A perfect little book.

Thanks, Laura Amy Schlitz. I can't wait to see what you come up with next!

Chester Raccoon and the Acorn Full of Memories - Audrey Penn

Illustrated by Barbara L. Gibson
Tanglewood Publishing, 2009
$16.95
32 pages
Endpapers: Purple

I picked this book up just to glance through it, to read it quickly, but with no intentions of blogging about it. However, I really enjoyed it. I liked the illustrations. I liked the story. I liked that it talked about making memories, but avoided spirituality. There's certainly a place for books like this.

When Chester Raccoon discovers that his friend Skiddil Squirrel has died, his mother helps him understand what that means, and helps him relieve memories of their time together, creating a happy spot in his mind about his friend. And when they travel to the place where Chester and Skiddil always played, they are accompanied by others who knew the squirrel. There's even a cool, happy ending that really cements the idea of memories and how important they are: Skiddil had collected a cache of acorns and buried them. However, when it came to finding them again, even with his friends helping, they could not be found. But Chester and his mom find a stand of new oak trees, and know this was the hiding place.

The illustrations cover the entire page, are very detailed and colorful and....happy.

Okay, I really like this book.

Scaredy Squirrel - Melanie Watt

Kids Can Press, 2006
32 pgs with one that flips open
For: Ages 4-8
Rating: 4.5
Endpapers: Front: rows of huge brown & green acorns on a blue background
Back: a P.S. picture with Scaredy Squirrel waving goodbye.

There's a section in Bookmarks magazine each issue called "have you read?" It's a list of favorite books by different readers. In the March/April 2010 issue, Jennifer Roy (author of Yellow Star) mentions a picture book that she and her son have reread many times. So I borrowed it from the library, and here it is! Yup, it's fun, yup, it's laugh-out-loud, and yup, this fella sure has plenty of neuroses, just as Ms. Roy claimed. And it looks like this one got ole' Scaredy started, because I now see Scaredy Squirrel at Night, Scaredy Squirrel Makes a Friend, and Scaredy Squirrel at the Beach!

Scaredy Squirrel never...EVER...leaves his tree. There are too many things that he's scared of. He has an emergency kit prepared that will help him in any sort of trouble. That is, until one day he needs it, then all sorts of things he never planned for happen. But good things come from life, too.....Scaredy discovers that he's a FLYING squirrel!

The illustrations are big and bold - thick black lines colored with great outdoor colors, not too bright, but not wimpy at all. She uses all sorts of storytelling techniques, boxes with time frames, clocks, bulleted lists. Lots to look at , lots to think about.

Hurrah! A very cool book.