Story Time Fridays: Boys + Books = Awesome!

Since I’m actually not doing story time this week because I’m at Dragon*Con (YAY!), I can’t really do a story time review. Shame on me, I know, but one of my awesome co-workers is doing it instead on cookies. Yes. Cookies. Not fair. The kids are never going to want me and my cookie-less story times ever again... Anyways, I still wanted to post something about story times, so I thought about what possible story times I could do in the future. The particular story time that I came up with would be good for a group of boys, rowdy, “tough,” funny boys. Girls can definitely enjoy these books, too, they’re not gender exclusive, but they have a particular appeal to boys.

How to Babysit a Grandpa: by Jean Reagan; illustrated by Lee Wildish

ISBN: 9780375867132

Cute, cute, cute! This book is really adorable, super fun and probably going to be loved by the pre-school/early elementary kid crowd! It’s a how-to book for young children who want to be the best babysitters for their grandpas; they learn how to greet, feed, walk and entertain their grandpas while acting as grandpa-sitters. Also, it’s the story of a little boy being babysat by his fun and loving grandpa. It’s funny and clever, and both kid and adult readers will probably find it amusing.

Although it’s a short book, being for young children and all, the author is still able to give the characters a lot of personality. The little boy has a big imagination, and he’s rambunctious, spirited and kind while the grandpa is warm, caring and willing to be a little silly and goofy with his grandkid. The boy’s love of playing pretend was a great touch, and I liked how he included his grandpa in his games, showing young readers that grandparents can be a lot of fun too.

The illustrations are very well-done, and every time you read it, you can pick out things you might have missed before. My favorite little detail is the inclusion of a pair of conniving little lizards who don't like the grandpa. If you wanted to add another element to reading the story aloud, you could easily play I-Spy-The-Lizards if you were reading this book with a child!

This book is an awesome book for any kid who is going to be staying behind with a babysitter, but it is an especially good book for grandparents to read with their grandkids or perhaps for teachers to read on grandparent visitation days. It’s a cute, silly book that will make kids giggle.

Hogwash by Karma Wilson; illustrated by Jim McMullan

ISBN: 9780316988407

It’s spring, and therefore it’s time to clean the animals on the farm but things go awry when Farmer gets to his pigs; they refuse to take a bath! Hilarious attempts by the farmer to wash the pigs fail miserably, and his best chance to wash his hogs turns into a muddy mess of fun for everyone. Farmer eventually learns that pigs just prefer to be muddy and that maybe a bit of mud is good for everyone, himself included.

When I read this to a group of preschools, they loved it when they were prompted to make oinks and pig snorts when the pigs were in full on rebellion. There were giggles of delight when the plane crashed into the pig pen, and everyone liked the ending where the Farmer ends up enjoying the mud with the pigs.

While I think that overall this is a really nice book, some of the rhymes didn’t totally work and were a little clunky to read along. If you’re going to perform this book, I would suggest reading through the book aloud by yourself a few times before you read it to a group.  However, the illustrations are bright and colorful, and the facial expressions on the pigs and Farmer were awesome. The plot is very cute, and I love how the crop duster was incorporated. I had one little boy who was quite ecstatic about said crop duster and wanted to talk about planes for a long time after the story was done. A great book for a unit on farms or farm animals!

Boy + Bot by Ame Dyckman; illustrated by Dan Yaccarino

ISBN: 9780375867569

In Boy + Bot, two very strange new friends don’t understand at first how they need different things. Bot needs oil while Boy does not; Boy needs to sleep while Bot does not. The illustrations in this book are simple and clean. Perhaps they are slightly too simple for older children who have grown to appreciate details and looking for little special things in pictures. However, preschooler and babies will like the big, colorful artwork.

As a story time book, this picture book works well when reading to a group of preschoolers. It’s a good size book, which makes it way more interesting for kids, since they can see the pictures easily. Also, the simple illustrations are really good if you’re reading to a very young crowd; they’re not interested in the details, they’re just interested in the funny pictures and bright colors. I found that it was a lot of fun to give Bot a robotic voice and give the scientist a funny accent, too. The kids at the story time I was reading at thought that was hilarious, and they liked trying to talk like Bot.

Both boys and girls will probably like this book, but boys might be more interested in it because a little boy is the main character. However, any young kid with a love for robots will probably think this book is nifty. It’s not a must-have for a pre-school collection, but it is a nice addition if you need or would like something about robots.

I think a fun craft for this story time would be a really messy one, like a full on finger paint extravaganza or even a make-your-own play dough kind of craft. Or, if you wanted less mess, you could have robot cut-outs for them and have them put the robot friends together, which would reinforce the message of friendship in ‘Boy + Bot.’ Maybe instead of a song during this story time, it would be more fun to teach the kids to talk in ‘Robotics’. If you wanted to keep the song element, you could sing ‘I’m Bringing Home a Baby Bumblebee” since it has the part where the bumblebee gets squashed or maybe “Black Socks,” though that one can get very loud, very fast. Which kids looove. I’ll probably keep this story time as a back-up, just-in-case story time for the future.