Tag Archives: Diverse Books

Little Elliot, Big City

IMG_3985

Elliot is a tiny, pastel-spotted, New-York-City-dwelling elephant. He generally works around his size limitations, but often goes unnoticed and is nearly overcome by loneliness (and cupcake cravings) until he finds “someone even littler than himself, who had an even bigger problem.” In helping this someone (an adorable white mouse), Elliot’s problems are solved. This deeply cute book manages to stop short of being saccharine and is very popular.

Author: Mike Curato
Illustrator: Mike Curato

Franny K. Stein: Mad Scientist series

IMG_3881

This series, about a slightly-diabolical genius whose science skills far outpace her social skills, has been making the boys HOWL with laughter. In a very happy coincidence, the poem generator above was part of tonight’s bedtime reading. Happy Valentine’s Day!

Author: Jim Benton
Illustrator: Jim Benton

 

How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World

IMG_3518

Making an apple pie is really very easy.
First, get all the ingredients at the market.
Mix them well, bake, and serve.

Unless, of course,
the market is closed.

In that case, go home and pack a suitcase.

The pie-craving protagonist travels to Italy (for wheat), Frances (for a chicken that lays “elegant eggs”), Sri Lanka (for kurundu bark), England (for a cow to provide milk), Jamaica (for seawater and sugar cane), and Vermont (for apples). Once the traveling is through, all she will have to do is:

mill the wheat into flour,
grind the kurundu
bark into cinnamon,
evaporate the seawater
from the salt,
boil the sugar cane,
persuade the chicken
to lay an egg…

Well, you get the idea. This book is thoughtful, colorful, and quietly funny. Perhaps it was inspired by the famous Carl Sagan quote: “If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.” (My youngest swears by the apple pie recipe on the last page.)

Author: Marjorie Priceman
Illustrator: Marjorie Priceman

The Odd Egg

IMG_3358

All the birds had laid an egg.
All except for Duck.
Then Duck found an egg!
He thought it was the most beautiful egg in the whole wide world.

Well after all of the other birds’ eggs hatch (in a sequence making clever use of paper engineering), Duck keeps faith in his egg. Ignoring the other birds’ overt skepticism, Duck waits and waits until his very special, surprising, hatchling makes a grand entrance. The boys really enjoy this book; it is sweet, short, and very funny.

Author: Emily Gravett
Illustrator: Emily Gravett

One Kitten for Kim

IMG_3072

Kim had a cat named Geraldine and seven kittens.
One kitten was striped like a tiny tiger. One was round,
and soft, and white as a snowball. Two were black as a
midnight sky, and three had black and white polka-dots
all over.

Kim thought that having seven kittens was fun. Kim’s
mother and father did not agree.

So Kim is sent out to give away six of the kittens. And he succeeds. There is only one complication: everyone who takes a kitten thanks Kim by giving him a different pet in exchange. This is a great book to read with early readers and non-readers, due to the subtle humor and repeated rebuses (pictures that take the place of words).

Author: Adelaide Holl
Illustrator: Don Madden

 

Miss Bridie Chose a Shovel

IMG_2870

She could have picked a chiming clock or a porcelain figurine,
but Miss Bridie chose a shovel back in 1856.

Miss Bridie chose the shovel from the peg in the barn, and
she took it to the dock, where she stepped aboard the ship.
She leaned on the shovel as she rocked in the cabin while
she lived on the ship on her way across the sea.

Miss Bridie flung the shovel with her pack on her shoulder
when she stepped off the ship in the harbor in New York.

This quiet, beautiful book covers most of a lifetime and is a pleasure from beginning to end.

Author: Leslie Connor
Illustrator: Mary Azarian

 

Three Strong Women: A Tall Tale from Japan

IMG_2857

Famous sumo wrestler Forever-Mountain thinks very highly of himself. But when he plays a joke on a young woman she (literally) drags him home to her mother (who carries around their pet cow around to spare its delicate feet) and grandmother (who pulls oak trees out of the ground if she trips over their roots) and the three of them offer to make a truly strong man out of him. When he agrees:

Every day he was made to do the work of five men, and every
evening he wrestled with Grandmother. Maru-me and her mother agreed
that Grandmother, being old and feeble, was the least likely to
injure him accidentally. They hoped the exercise might be good for
her rheumatism.

We love this book. It is unexpected, funny, and satisfying from start to finish.

Author: Claus Stamm
Illustrator: Jean and Mou-sien Tseng

 

Argus

IMG_2863

[T]he children drew pictures
of their chicks to post on the walls. All
of the other children’s pictures were cute
and yellow and very much alike. Sally’s
picture… wasn’t.

“Good work, children,” said Mrs. Henshaw. “Now let’s
investigate what our little chicks like to eat.”

“Mine likes seeds!” said one boy.

“Mine likes beetles!” said another.

“Mine is trying to eat the other chicks,” said Sally.

One of these chicks is really not like the others. But every time Sally tries to point this out, her teacher simply tells her not to be difficult. While the teacher’s careful refusal to acknowledge the elephant (dragon) in the room is increasingly absurd, Sally begins to love her “chick” despite the many challenges it presents.

Ultimately, this sweet, dryly funny book is about differences, unpredictability, and loving the one you’re with.

Author: Michelle Knudsen
Illustrator: Andrea Wesson

 

Million series

IMG_2298

Visualizing a million, billion, or trillion (or other concepts like compound interest and the metric system) isn’t easy, unless you read this fun series of books.

For example, a tank big enough to hold a million goldfish would be big enough to hold a whale. A tank big enough to hold a billion goldfish would be as big as a stadium. And a tank big enough to hold a trillion goldfish would be as big as a city harbor. (Keeping in mind a tank should hold one gallon of water for every one inch goldfish!)

Steven Kellogg’s cheerful illustrations keep things light, bright, and engaging. How Much is a Million? is our favorite of the series.

Author: David M. Schwartz
Illustrator: Steven Kellogg

The Animal Family

IMG_2340

Once upon a time, long, long ago,
where the forest runs down to the
ocean, a hunter lived all alone in a
house made of logs he had chopped for
himself and shingles he had split for
himself. The house had one room, and
at the end closest to the ocean there was
a fireplace of pink and gray and green
boulders–the hunter had carried them
home in his arms from the cliff where
the forest ended….

In spring the meadow that ran down
from the cliff to the beach was all foam-
white and sea-blue with flowers; the
hunter looked at it and it was beautiful.
But when he came home there was no
one to tell what he had seen–and if he
picked the flowers and brought them
home in his hands, there was no one to
give them to. And when at evening,
past the dark blue shape of a far-off
island, the sun sank under the edge of
the sea like red world vanishing, the
hunter saw it all, but there was no one
to tell what he had seen.

This strange and beautiful book has hunters and mermaids; bears and lynxes; loneliness, love, and luck; and moments of violence and deep sadness. More than anything else it is about making a family.

Author: Randall Jarrell
Illustrator: Maurice Sendak