I guess you could say that story time today was a very early introduction to personification. The theme today was basically “Animals Doing Crazy Things,” meaning animals doing things that animals don’t normally do. Yes, I know, I was sort of stretching it, but I liked the there books I picked out, and that was the common theme between the three of them.
Click, Clack Moo: Cows That Type by Doreen Cronin; illustrations by Betsy Lewin
ISBN: 9780689832130
This Caldecott Honor Book was a big hit with my storytime kids! My story time parents, grandparents and babysitters got into this one too; they were snickering and laughing at the notes the cows, chickens and ducks wrote and the reactions of Farmer Brown. This is a funny little story about the cows on Farmer Brown’s farm who have learned to type; they start making demands and go on strike and it snowballs out of control from there. It’s not particularly deep or anything, but I suppose it could be seen as a story about compromise. Personally I used it as part of an “animals doing silly things” theme, and that seemed to go over very well. I really like the slightly messy, somewhat sketchy illustrations that Betsy Lewis drew. They’re cute and engaging, and the kids seemed pretty entranced by this book. They also ended up joining in on the repetitive “click, clack, moo” portions of the book. I’ll definitely be using this one again; maybe next time I’ll use it in a storytime with the other books in Cronin’s series.
(Review can also by found on yabookscentral.com: click here!)
Children Make Terrible Pets by Peter Brown
ISBN: 9780316015486
So I was a huge fan of Brown’s “You Will Be My Friend!” so I was really excited when this book hit our library’s in-coming shelf. It was for one of our branches, but I momentarily snatched it for story time. It’s basically a “what-if” story where a peppy young female bear decides to make a pet out of a little human boy that she finds in the woods. She names him Squeaker because of the sound he makes and soon learns that pets are more difficult to take care of than she first thought. This book is a little more difficult for storytime than straight reading since there are multiple character voices and the little boy’s squeaks can get a little lost in the story. However, it went over relatively well, though I think it would be best read one-on-one. I totally adore the illustrations in this book; they’re rustic and quirky and somehow warm. The pages have a rougher texture than most easy books, and the book has fake wood features and patterns that give it a very neat look overall.
Giraffes Can’t Dance by Giles Andreae; illustrations by Guy Parker-Rees
ISBN: 9780439287197
Perfect for giraffe lovers or kids who think jungle animals are nifty! You can always find books on dogs, cats, pigs and mice, but it’s far more difficult to find a book about giraffes, and this one is pretty decent. In this book, Gerald the giraffe just can’t dance, much to his shame when the annual Jungle Dance comes around. He feels down and depressed until a cheerful cricket teaches him that maybe he just needs a different song to dance to since he himself is different. It did pretty well in storytime, at least until the end. The story time kids lost a little of their interest toward the middle when the cricket came in to give sage words of wisdom, but the parents seemed to really like that part. Some of the rhymes were off and didn’t exactly match, but that was the only thing that really irked me. Parker-Rees’ illustrations were colorful and bold with a good bit of playful flair to them; I think they fit the story really well.
For a song, we did “If Your Ears Hang Low” and some motions to go along with the song. Craftwise, I had them crazy birds for them to color and feather; it was a tiny bit messy, especially when it came to gluing the feathers on, but overall, they had fun with it and the clean-up wasn’t so bad. “Bird” seemed to be a popular name for the birds. :)
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