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blog by MOTHERREADER listed in categories: Book Planet

Three recent — and good — picture book additions in my fair library. I’m thinking of making these Three Picture Books posts a new thing for this blog, since I have a steady supply of these mini-reviews for picture books. We’ll see.

Snow Day! by Lester L. Laminack, illustrated by Adam Gustavson

“Did you hear that? Did the weatherman just say what I thought he did? Did he say… SNOW? Oh please, let it snow. Lots and lots of snow.” This person is ready for a snow day and all the things that go along with it. No alarm clock. Staying in PJs. Playing outside. A day to watch TV and read a new book. To sled and throw snowballs. The special fun in this book is the surprise that I won’t spoil, and the fun illustrations that bring the reader into the imagining of the perfect snow day. Great book. (Here we got ice days, but no snow days, so I’m feeling particularly warm and fuzzy about this title.)

Guess What I Found in Dragon Wood, by Timothy Knapman, illustrated by Gwen Millward

The surprise in this book is revealed on the second real page, so I don’t feel bad giving it away. It’s the dragon who finds a boy — or a Benjamin, as he calls it. The little dragon shows the Benjamin to his parents, and they feed him and put him to bed. The next day he goes to school, but he doesn’t want to sit on a volcano like the dragons are learning to do. In fact, he’s sad and… leaking. He misses his home, so his new dragon friend takes him back there. It’s not that the idea of mixing the point of view is brand new, but it is new enough and it’s usually fun, and it’s especially fun this time. Wonderful and imaginative illustrations. Another book winner.

Big Chickens Fly the Coop, by Leslie Helakoski, illustrated by Henry Cole

It’s hard to go wrong with a chicken book. Chickens are funny. In this story, four big chickens are ready for a change from the nice safe coop. They decide to go to the farmhouse to look for bugs there. As they make their way along, they keep running into places that they think are the farmhouse and are most definitely are not the farmhouse and are indeed Trouble with a capital T. Henry Cole’s illustrations add to the hilarity of the chickens running into a dog, a tractor, and horses. You’ve never seen a batch of funnier expressions on chickens, I’ll tell you that. It would be a great read-aloud as well as a giggly book to share one on one.

Posted in April, 2008