Magnus Maximus has a walrus mustache, a benign countenance and a preoccupation: measuring and counting. Read full book review >
A rainy day at school turns a dozen restless children into master storytellers. Read full book review >
A tortoiseshell cat enjoys a run after a chipmunk and some leaps over the furniture, but she's ready for a nap. Read full book review >
The tallyman is a census-taker, and in Davies's book, he is Phineas Bump—"heartsick, saddle-sore, and down on his luck"—and something of a clever-boots poking through the "rooty Vermont woods" in 1790 to take his count of the locals. Read full book review >
Wit meets historical accuracy in a pitch-perfect mix of laugh-out-loud text and entertaining image. Read full book review >
Interspersing her narrative with verses from "Home on the Range," "Sweet Betsy from Pike," "The Old Chisholm Trail" and like cowboy chestnuts, Hopkinson retraces the early career of the greatest collector and recorder of American folk songs ever. Read full book review >
A cheerily skewed take on the familiar monster-under-the-bed schtick. Read full book review >
In a pair of cozy read-aloud tales, Doc, a worn plush bear discarded when his hospital's Children's Ward is spruced up, meets a quartet of like survivors in a dump, lends expert aid to reset a blackbird's dislocated wing and later pitches in to get a lost toy bunny back to its distraught boy. Read full book review >
Lili is so shy that her voice, when she actually says anything, is usually too soft to be heard. Read full book review >
The author of Cod's Tale (2001) again demonstrates a dab hand at recasting his adult work for a younger audience. Read full book review >
A spirited text and humorously detailed line-and-color illustrations discuss the evolving nature of dinosaur research, emphasizing the ways recent discoveries have changed the ways paleontologists understand the always-fascinating creatures. Read full book review >
In this well meant (if a little overdone) tribute, the great maverick Thoreau shrugs off the scorn of Concord's bustling, consumerist townsfolk—some of whom exhibit respiratory ailments from the sooty air—and builds his cabin near Walden Pond. Read full book review >
Into Bernie's barn, filled with castoff animals he has either actively collected or hasn't the heart to refuse, wanders Whittington the cat, an ugly bruiser of a tom who seeks community. Read full book review >
In this variation of the folk theme in which mortals cheat death, Grandy Thaxter is a sturdy old New Englander in a solid clapboard house and Mister Death is a tall, lanky old fellow dressed in black tails and top hat. Read full book review >
Hanukkah is approaching, the Rabbi's out of town, and the villagers have forgotten how to celebrate, so they send Yossel to the next town to find out what the traditional observance entails. Read full book review >
Lewis and Schindler transform a tale usually associated with Thanksgiving into a "thumpety bumpety thumpin' bumpin' round and roll-y" Halloween disaster-in-the-making, narrowly averted by some quick thinking and ending with a hilarious twist. Read full book review >
Unlike the rest of his family, Moses the mouse can't focus on gathering supplies in anticipation of the coming winter. Read full book review >
In jaunty rhyme, one witch gathers up a fish tail from two cats, a blackbird's claw from three scarecrows, and similarly appetizing ingredients from similarly iconic ookie-spookies, up to the spider's soup donated by ten werewolves. Read full book review >
A beautifully illustrated, informative entry in the Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science series explores the biology of spinning spiders. Read full book review >
Who hasn't shared the aggravation of a whole day's worth of bone-rattling hiccups? Read full book review >
Assembly-line workers are being replaced by machines—but Santa? Read full book review >
An awesome introduction for young readers to the Atlantic codfish by the author of the bestselling adult title, Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World (1997). Read full book review >
Wolff manages to be gross without getting nauseating in this witch's brew of ABC's. Read full book review >
Schindler (Hog Music, 2000, etc.) beautifully illustrates a poem from the Benéts' Book of Americans (1933) with spacious scenes of a cheerful, bearded, apple-cheeked wanderer, sometimes seen in youth, sometimes in old age, juggling apples and tending both gnarled fruit trees and slender saplings in sunny, sparsely settled landscapes. Read full book review >
A pioneer family travels from Independence, Missouri, to Sacramento, California, in a covered wagon some time in the 19th century. Read full book review >
This easy-to-read comic adventure yarn, for all its simplicity, has real narrative momentum and a pleasing mess of puns, while Schindler's fine ink-and-watercolor illustrations lend the tale an even greater merriment. Read full book review >
Kay debuts with a rollicking tale about an idealistic farmer's quest for gold and glory during the gold rush of 1849. Read full book review >
From DeFelice (Willy's Silly Grandma, 1997, etc.), a rollicking, rhyming read-aloud with a clever little girl and the crow of the title. Crow loves shiny things, and steals Emma's mother's keys right off the front porch. Read full book review >
This My First I Can Read title is a rhythmic puzzle for the youngest of readers. Read full book review >
Playing with numbers—that's what this book from Murphy (The Best Vacation Ever, 1997, etc.) is all about. Read full book review >
``A bat flew into the dining room,/at the hotel restaurant by the lake./Mistake.'' Dragonwagon (Alligators and Others All Year Long, 1993, etc.) pens a lilting, loosely rhymed text about a bat who finds itself in an alien indoor environment, the human pandemonium that ensues, and the observant little girl who imagines how the bat must feel. Read full book review >
McDonald (see review above) and Schindler have created an uncommon blend of folkways and natural history that underscores a gracefully told, lovingly illustrated Christmas story. In an Alaskan variant of the town mouse/country mouse tale, a wild mousereferred to as Tundra Mousefinds herself in the unfamiliar environment of a human house, where she is welcomed by the resident House Mouse. Read full book review >
A verdant testimony to the noble plants that shade our lawns and line our streets. Read full book review >
When old Nicholas Greebe dies on a wintry day, his shivering family buries him hastily in a shallow grave. Read full book review >
Madame LaGrande is fashion's latest slave in pre-Revolutionary Paris. Read full book review >
With outstanding care and restraint, Sayre (Grasslands, 1994, not reviewed, etc.) introduces this unusual bird and tells the story of symbiosis in a spare, poetic text that is also exciting for reading aloud. Readers are told to follow the honey guide, a small brown bird from Kenya, and it will lead them to a tree of wild bees and their honey. Read full book review >
The endearing winged cats who escaped the city to be cared for by two reliable country children (Catwings, 1988, etc.) make a third appearance in this tale of a self-important kitten from nearby who discovers that his true worth is not what he has supposed. Read full book review >
Another offbeat tall tale from the authors of Charlie Malarkey and the Belly-Button Machine (1990); William Kennedy is also the Pulitzer-Prize-winning author of Ironweed and other adult fiction. Read full book review >
A veteran author and illustrator bring their common interest in nature to a beautiful anthology of high-quality poetry: 91 poems from such as Roethke, Sandburg, Ciardi, Merriam, Millay, and Zolotow and from Leila and Tanya Dreskin (ages 5 and 7), plus several haiku and Native American songs. Read full book review >
An effervescent, kid-appealing parody of a popular folk song (``Yonder Tree''): An impish-looking boy details the delights of his bizarre pets (``I love my warthog and my warthog loves me./He blows his round nose on my sleeve./He borrows my toothpaste, my brush, and my floss./My mom has asked him to leave.'') Read full book review >
Skateboarding down the block for his weekly visit with his elderly aunt, the peppy, freckled kid, sweatband holding his squared-off red hair bolt upright, dolefully anticipates the usual tedium while Aunt Ida stops to chat with friends during their walk with her Great Dane. ``If Doc and me could have our own way/We'd get up and GO, MAN, GO!'' While he endures the sedate pace, the boy imagines what he and the dog could do if they escaped: ``rope cattle on the prairie,'' perform in a circus... Read full book review >
Greene's first foray into humorous fiction for a younger audience than her popular series about Al and Isabelle. Read full book review >
In a nicely cadenced variant on the cumulative tale about a turnip, a witch is vainly trying to tug a pumpkin off its vine in order to bake a pie. Read full book review >
Just before dark, a nesting barn owl hears a faint sound, familiar yet mysterious. Read full book review >
Levine's first book is a tall tale with a role reversal guaranteed to amuse: Max's grandma, Mrs. Medley, takes half the day to get to the beach—she keeps going home for more stuff. Read full book review >
