Picture Book: Field Trip to the Moon by John Hare

A Wordless Picture Book
Illustrated by the author

2019, Margaret Ferguson Books, Holiday House

HC $17.99

40 pgs.

Goodreads rating:  4.24 - 348 ratings

My rating:  5
Endpapers: Bright Goldenrod

1^st line/s:  None, it's wordless!

My comments: Clever, cute, quick story.  A little boy, and artist with his crayons, gets left by mistake on the Moon.  After his schoolbus/spaceship leaves, little grey men come to the surface and make friens with him.  They each take a different crayon, and hide with them when the schoolbus/spaceship returns for the boy.  He's left with only the gray crayon...which he uses to draw his new friends onto his pad on the return trip to earth.

Goodreads: It's field trip day, and students are excited to travel on their yellow spaceship bus from their space station to the moon.
\          Climb aboard the spaceship bus for a fantastic field trip adventure to the moon. Once they land, students debark and set out with their teacher to explore. They jump over trenches and see craters and mountains on the moon's surface and even Earth in the faraway distance. One student takes a break to draw some pictures, falls asleep, and wakes up to discover that the rest of the class and the spaceship are gone. How the student passes the time waiting to be rescued makes for a funny and unexpected adventure that will enchant children all over the galaxy.

Picture Book: Explorers by Mathew Cordell

A Wordless Picture Book
Illustrated by the author

2019 Feiwel and Friends

HC $18.99

40 pgs.

Goodreads rating:  3.75 - 177 ratings

My rating:  4
Endpapers: bright rust

1^st line/s:  None- it's a wordless book

My comments:  Fun story, lots to examine, with a great message and a little bit of "mysticism."  The young boy is given a flying airplane-type toy and he  plays with it throughout the museum, until it's caught by another boy.  At first he's upset, but when he "loses" his parents, upon finding them, both families make friends. 

Goodreads: From Caldecott Medalist Matthew Cordell, Explorers is a new picture book about an extraordinary trip to a museum.
          When a family goes to a local museum, a boy notices a homeless man sitting outside, making brightly colored origami birds. He convinces his dad to buy a bird the man makes just for him.
          Once inside the museum, his little sister takes the bird and launches it into the air. Is it lost? Soon another boy helps him look, and the paper bird brings two families―and two new friends―together.
          With the style he used in Wolf in the Snow, Matthew Cordell shows how an ordinary family outing can be both extraordinary and magical.

PICTURE BOOK - The Farmer and the Clown - Marla Frazee

Illustrated by the author

2014 Beach Lane Books

HC $17.99

32 pgs.

Goodreads rating:  4.32

My rating: 4

Endpapers:  red

Title Page: browns and yellow: sunrise: farmer heading for the fields, walking away from his small house

Wordless picture book

My comments:  A farmer (who lives alone way out in the country) rescues a baby clown who falls off a circus train. Through days and nights they bond and become very attached to one another - until the train returns and the farmer gets to reunite baby clown to his family. 
Happy? Yes. Sad? Yes! Perhaps my current loneliness makes me feel extra, ultra sorry for the poor farmer, but I'm left with such a sad feeling after reading this story!

Goodreads:  Whimsical and touching images tell the story of an unexpected friendship and the revelations it inspires in this moving, wordless picture book from two-time Caldecott Honor medalist Marla Frazee.
          A baby clown is separated from his family when he accidentally bounces off their circus train and lands in a lonely farmer’s vast, empty field. The farmer reluctantly rescues the little clown, and over the course of one day together, the two of them make some surprising discoveries about themselves—and about life!
          Sweet, funny, and moving, this wordless picture book from a master of the form and the creator of The Boss Baby speaks volumes and will delight story lovers of all ages. 

PICTURE BOOK - Fossil - Bill Thomson

Illustrated by the author

2014 Two Lions (Amazon!) (I'm quite sure it said 2014 in the book, but Goodreads says it was published in November of 2013.

40 pgs.

Goodreads rating: 3.91

My rating: 4/Loved it

Endpapers: grey-green

Title Page: A wordless beginning to the story - the start of their walk

Illustrations: "Bill Thomson embraced traditional painting techniques and meticulously painted each illustration by hand, using acrylic paint and colored pencils.  His illustrations are not photographs or computer-generated images."

1^st line/s: None - it's completely wordless
Dedication:  "In loving remembrance of the students and teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School"

My comments:  This wordless book is about a boy and his dog, out for a walk along the sandy shore of a lake or pond.  The fossil he discovers when he accidentally trips splits open to begin a series of events that are chronicled beautifully in pictures only.  The facial expressions of the boy AND his dog give the story incredible dimension. I only had one problem with the book.  Near the end of the it, he boy intentionally destroys fossils.  He does this (SPOILER!) to save his dog.  I have a really hard time with this...it makes total sense for the story, but I don't want the idea of destroying a fossil to ever be in an impressionable kid's mind. Other than that, the book was incredibly glorious.  What a beautiful pair this boy and dog are!

Goodreads:  When a boy and his dog go for a hike, the boy trips on a fossil, and it comes to life, revealing an ancient plant. The boy is so intrigued that he breaks two more fossils that come to life—a dragonfly and a pteranodon. When these prehistoric creatures collide with present reality, the boy must figure out a way to make things go back to normal. Visually told through art, this "wordless story" will surely spark imagination and creativity.

PICTURE BOOK - Mr. Wuffles - David Wiesner

Illustrated by the author
A Caldecott Honor Book

2013, Clarion

HC $17.99

32 pgs.

Goodreads rating: 4.01

My rating:3

Endpapers: solid gray

Title Page: spread across two pages - large black (and white) protagonist with each letter of the title done in a different color.

Illustrations:  Really great.  Watercolor & ink

1^st line/s: This is a wordless book.

My comments: I've got to admit, I had to read this book more than several times to figure out what I thought was going on.  It was wordless and I guess my imagination wasn't up to par.  I wasn't prepared for aliens from outer space....

Goodreads: A 2014 Caldecott Honor Book In a near wordless masterpiece that could only have been devised by David Wiesner, a cat named Mr. Wuffles doesn't care about toy mice or toy goldfish. He’s much more interested in playing with a little spaceship full of actual aliens—but the ship wasn't designed for this kind of rough treatment. Between motion sickness and damaged equipment, the aliens are in deep trouble.When the space visitors dodge the cat and take shelter behind the radiator to repair the damage, they make a host of insect friends. The result? A humorous exploration of cooperation between aliens and insects, and of the universal nature of communication involving symbols, “cave” paintings, and gestures of friendship

Bluebird - Bob Staake

Illustrated by the author

2013 Random House Child

HC

Dedication: to John James Audubon

Goodreads rating: 4.12

My rating: 1.5 (I didn't really like it very much)

Acquired:  TPPL (The public library seems to be taking off the dust covers now when the same illustrations is on the cover of the book itslef.  I don't like the missing endflaps, which I like to read after I've read the book...)

Illustrations:   There are lots of boxes to pour over, until the end of the book, the only colors are shades of blue, gray, and white.  A small amount of brighter colors are added on the last few pages to accentuate the plot.  This part was actually quite clever...I guess...

1^st line/s:  None.  It's a wordless book.

My Goodreads review/comments:  I guess I'm one of the few people who aren't entranced with this wordless picture book.  The first 2/3 was okay, but - for me - well...boring.  Then, all of a sudden, right out of the blue, (Spoiler-of-a-sort coming) there's a shocking turn of events and then - what? - a spiritually uplifting ending?  I read it three times.  School just got out or I'd LOVE to give it to some of my 4th graders to see how they perceive it.  I hate giving "bad" ratings, but I'm being kindly truthful here....Let's say a 1.5 because I didn't HATE it....

South - Patrick McDonnell

(creator of the comic strip "Mutts")
2008, Little Brown & Co.
$14.99 HC
www.muttscomics.com
Goodreads: 4.43
my rating:  Liked it a lot (4.5)
40 pgs. & endpapers
Endpapers (& all pages) recycled beige

This simple, wordless picture book is super -- sweet and quite a lovely story.  It is autumn.  A flock of songbirds takes off for the south and forgets one of their own, who is asleep on the ground under a tree.  Along comes a cat who helps him through all sorts of strange,foreign terrain...pages and pages of a journey....until they come upon the bird's flock, resting on a telephone wire.  By now the bird and cat are close friends and their parting is a meaningful one.

Yes, my fourth graders could write a lovely story to go with this.  The simple beige/brown/pale yellow pages could easily be photocopied for students to use -- and even water color in the pale blues and greens that appear here and there.

(Note to self:  Check out other books by this author.  Are they wordless?  (The Gift of Nothing, Art, Just Like Heaven, Hug Time.)  "Sometimes it takes a friend to help you find your way."

Wordless Picture Books

I'm making a collection of wordless picture books for my fourth graders to use for writing.  I've found some magnificent ones (Barbara Lehman is one of my new favorite illustrators!) and I'll keep adding them as I get the chance.

I'm also hoping that before the end of the school year I'll be able to add a bit of my students' writing

Goodreads has a LISTOPIA listing of wordless books here.

Cordell, Matthew - Explorers (4)
Donovan, Jane Monroe - Small, Medium & Large (4)
Frazee, Marla - The Farmer and the Clown (4)
Hare, John - Field Trip to the Moon (5)
Hogrogian, Nonny - Cool Cat (3.5)
Lehmann, Barbara  - Red Book, The (4.5)
..........Secret Box, The (4)
..........Trainstop (3)
McDonnell, Patrick - South (4.5)
McPhail, David - No! (4)
Newman, Jeff - The Boys (4)
Nyeu, Tao - Wonder Bear (2.5)
Paul, Alison - Sunday Love (3.5)
Pinkney, Jerry - Lion and the Mouse, The (5)
Staake, Bob - Bluebird (1.5)
Thomson, Bill - Chalk (5)
..........Fossil (4)
Van Ommen, Sylvia - The Surprise (4.5)
Varon, Sara - Chicken and Cat Clean Up (3.5)
Wiesner, David - Flotsam (5)
..........Tuesday (5)
..........Mr. Wuffles (3)

Trainstop - Barbara Lehman

Houghton Mifflin, 2008
HC $16.00
32 pgs.
Rating:  34
Endpapers:  bright green
A wordless story

A young girl is taking a subway/train home with her parents.  As they progress through the city they pass through a tunnel and when they come out on the other side...they are out in the countryside!?  The train is stopped by a boy waving a flag.  Everyone else appears to be dozing, so the girl steps off the train, to be greeted by a hoard of....LITTLE....umm....SMALL....umm....MINIATURE kids.  Their airplane has gotten stuck  high up in a tree.  Together they figure out how to get it down, a warning comes from the train that it's about to leave, she says goodbye to her new friends, and returns to the train.  It enters another tunnel only to re-emerge back into the midst of the bustling city.  After she gets home, in flies the plane she helped save, loaded with two of her new friends and a tiny potted tree, which she plants in the yard.

Barbara Lehman has done another great piece of storytelling without uttering a single word.

The Secret Box - Barbara Lehman

Illustrated by the author
Houghton Miffline Books for Children, 2011
$15.99
40 pgs.
For:  Thinkers ages 4 and up
Rating:  4
Endpapers:  a look into the secret box, open inside cover on left, pile of items on right (you're looking down into the box....)

A boy puts  some mementos and a map into a "Seahorse Pier Saltwater Taffy" candy box and hides it away under the floorboards in the top-floor dormitory room of some sort of haven for boys.  This is some time ago, because the story continues to show the area and neighborhood as they progress from spread-out farmland to eventual full-throttle inner city.  However, the house stays there, cramped now among huge buildings.  The house still is home to boys, and one day three modern-era boys find the box.  They follow the map to see where it leads.  Cool.  At the end, time has passed again, and two even more modern boys find the box.....

Oh yes, another great book to create story from images...perfect....PERFECT for fourth grade boys!

Small Medium & Large - Jane Monroe Donovan

Sleeping Bear Press, 2010
$15.95
32 pgs.
Rating: 4
Endpapers: White

In this beautifully illustrated wordless picture book, a girl writes a letter to Santa and is rewarded on Christmas morning with three boxes - one small, one medium, and one large. Inside are a cat, a dog, and a miniature pony. They all immediately become fast friends, eating together, playing and tobogganing in the snow, making snow angels and snowmen, having snowball fights, baking cookies, sitting by the fire together, than all snuggling into her bed at night.

At the end of the book the author tells of her own three animals who are really the prototypes for this story.

This is a lovely wordless book, a perfect addition to a Christmas library, for animal lovers especially. I went through it a number of times - the illustrations are beautiful, full of happy Christmas feelings (and I wouldn't consider myself a great animal lover, either).

Sunday Love - Alison Paul

Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, 2010
HC $16.99
32 pages
Rating: 3.5
Endpapers: Red

The cover grabbed me instantly.

This is a great wordless book for older kids to follow and figure out. Illustrated entirely in red, black, and white, Bruno the Burglar breaks out of "the big house" to go after the love of his life. He is, of course, followed the entire way with a gaggle of officers trying to apprehend him. His surprise love is found - ecstasy! - but just before he can fulfill his longed-for embrace, he is captured. This all takes place on Valentine's Day, with Cupid trying to help him out along the way....and with one last helpful incident at the very end, he actually wins. I'm being careful in my wording so I won't give any of the fun stuff away....

Because of a spelling "thing" I puzzled over the title for a second or two....then it hit me.....

Chalk - Bill Thomson

Marshall Cavendish, 2010
$15.99
40 pages
Rating: 5
Endpapers: Bright green

This is a wordless picture book that is SO beautifully illustrated! I'd love to see the words that kids would create to go with it!

Three kids are out walking through a playground in the rain. They find a shopping bag that holds pieces of colored chalk. When one kids grabs a yellow piece and draws a sun on the wet sidewalk, a sun rises to the sky, drying up the rain and wetness. When another kid grabs a peach chalk and draws butterflies, monarchs flutter up into the air. The third kid chooses a green one and draws the outline of a dinosaur. And suddenly they are overshadowed by a huge real one! They run, screaming, into the playground's slide tunnels. The kid grabs a blue chalk and, on the inside of the tunnel, draws a cloud and raindrops. As the rain starts falling, the dinosaur drips to nothingness.

Superb!

*Read this aloud and then give kids a piece of chalk.
*Write the story.
*Choose snazzy vers, adverbs, or adjectives to describe each page.

The Boys - Jeff Newman

Simon & Schuster Bks for Young Readers, 2010
$15.99
40 pages
"ages 4-8"
Endpapers: red

A wordless picture book that says a lot. A young boy brings his bat, ball, and glove to the playground in his city, but only watches the other kids play. He sits on a bench with four elderly men. The next day he returns, minus his baseball gear. Day by day he joins the men, becoming more and more like them, until, one day.....the old guys aren't too old to have fun and play....they play in the playground, ride bikes, and play ball with the boy. And finally the day comes when the boy is brave enough to join the others of his own age playing ball. His friends, the four elderly gents, stick around to watch.

The five protagonists, though very simply...almost crudely...drawn, have their own wonderful personalities. I could create stories for each of these old guys. They're great!

Clever, clever, fun book.

Flotsam - David Wiesner

Clarion Books, 2006
$17.00
40 pages
My rating: 5
Endpapers: beige "sand"
2007 Caldecott Winner

Why have I never before looked at this Caldecott winner??? It's a gorgeous wordless story. Ultra-clever. SO creative, so much to say, a full-fledged story without words.

A boy is lazing at the beach with his family, examining bugs and crabs and the ocean in general, when a large wave brings in a strange old camera - a "Melville Underwater Camera." He develops the film inside and can't believe the pictures that appear. Underwater fantasies of all kinds - whole stories could be told in each underwater photo - so many lesson plan ideas - But that's not all the pictures that are on the camera. There's a photo of another child, standing on a beach, holding a photo. And when he looks closer, he sees that the photo being held is of another child standing on a beach holding another photo....and back and back and back....

Note to self: start hunting for copies!

The illustrations are definitely Caldecott worthy. What a story.

Cool Cat - Nonny Hogrogian

A Neal Porter Book/Roaring Book Press, 2009
$17.99
36 pages
Rating: 3.5
Endpapers: (They actually begin this wordless story, 2 different illustrations framed in white)

This wordless picture book begins with a black and white cat (just like the "Mittens" we had when I grew up) in a rocky, brown, desolate place. The only vegetation is dead and broken, and the ground is littered with empty tin cans and a broken bottle. But the cat has a paint set in a wooden box, and slowly begins to paint the scene. Starting in the corner leaves appear, then a blue sky begins. A mouse comes to help...then a bunny, then a cardinal. The colors are now spreading from left and write as the animals are joined by a turtle, a squirrel, a goldfinch, a frog. A mallard duck appears to swim in the water that's been included. Butterflies flitter across the page, flowers appear, becoming more and more sluh. The animal friends celebrate.

Most of the two page spreads are made created as one long, horizonatal painting, with about an inch of white around the edges as a frame. More and more story comes into your head every time you take a trip through the pages. It really is a environmental/ecological story as well - to take your world from a dead, barren place to a live, green one...

The Lion and the Mouse - Jerry Pinkney

Little Brown, 2009
For: everyone!
Rating: 5
Endpapers: African scene full of animals
2010 Caldecott WINNER

Wowee. Zowee.
I really enjoy retellings of Aesop's Fables.
I adore Jerry Pinkney's work.
I'm fond of wordless books. (Even the cover has no words - only a large painnting of the lion.)

Here, without words except for the SOUNDS of owl (who who, screech), lion (grrr, rroarr), mouse (scratch, squeak), and jeep (putt-putt) we watch this timeless story unfold. Mouse, while escaping from owl, gets caught by lion, who decides to let him go. Hunters snare the lion, hes roars are heard by jmouse, who chews him free.

It's absolutely marvelous!

Chicken and Cat Clean Up - Sara Varon

Wordless
Scholastic, 2009
$16.99
44 pgs. ages 4-8
Rating: 3.5
Endpapers: thick green strips with encircled animal characters from the book

Chicken and Cat are two friends that live together. Chicken has decided to start a housecleaning business, and of course his friend Cat comes along to help out. But cat is tired, clumsy, and unsure of what to do, so he makes a lot of mistakes that have to be rectified. However, after they leave the apartment they are cleaning, he apprehends a mouse that has burgled a woman's purse, and thus becomes a hero.

Totally wordless. As I "read" it to Brendan, who's four, I had to explain what was going on in places, but he stayed interested and mesmerized througout the entire 44 pages. He talked about it later, so it was a hit! Very cute illustrations.

Chicken and Cat was written previously, this is their second adventure.

The Red Book - Barbara Lehman

Wordless
Houghton Mifflin, 2004
36 pgs, ages 5-8
Rating: 4.5
Endpapers: Red

The story is told by examining illustrations inside boxes, sometimes one box on a page, sometimes four. The illustrations are simple but not simplistic - there's plenty to see, examine, and admire.
         In the city it is snowing and a boy is on his way to school. He finds a red book in a snowbank. At school he opens it and is taken to a desert island where he sees another boy find a similar red book poking out of the sand. This boy opens it to find --- the boy in the city! They can see each other!
          After school the boy buys a huge bunch of helium balloons. They pull him up...up...up into the air and he drops the red book. The boy on the deserted island sees all of this transpiring on the pages of the red book that HE has, and is quite sad. Sad until - as we see in the pages of HIS book - his balloons floating onto the island!
          Our story ends with another boy in the city in the sonw, this time riding a bike. He finds the fallen book, sticking it under his arm and heading off along the sidewalk.
          Magical. Fun.

Goodreads: This book is about a book. A magical red book without any words. When you turn the pages you’ll experience a new kind of adventure through the power of story.Winning a Caldecott Honor for its illustrations of rare detail and surprise, The Red Book crosses oceans and continents to deliver one girl into a new world of possibility, where a friend she’s never met is waiting. And as with the best of books, at the conclusion of the story, the journey is not over.

The Surprise - Sylvia Van Ommen

Front Street/Boyds Mill Press

2007, originally Pub. in the Netherlands, 2003

28 p.

Rating: 4.5

Endpapers: Shelves of colored bottles (dyes)

A wordless delight - especially for a knitter. Sheep weighs himself (can't tell which gender, so I'll go with male), then hops on his moped and heads to the dye shop where he buys a bottle of red dye. At home he covers, rinses, dries, his wool, then shaves it all off. Hopping back on his moped he takes it to a fancy pink poodle who spins it into yarn. At home, he knits and knits and knits, then wraps. Again on his mjoped he zooms off to give a very long-necked sweater to his friend Giraffe, who rewards Sheep with a kiss on the cheek. Very sweet story. And a great one to write!

Illustrations are simple, very bright, and totally enjoyable.