Five books reviewed in five minutes.
- Changes: A Child's First Poetry Collection Poems by Charlotte Zolotow, illustrated by Tiphanie Beeke (Sourcebooks)
- The Baseball Player and the Walrus by Ben Loory, illustrated by Alex Latimer (Dial Books for Young Readers)
- Ready Rabbit Gets Ready! by Brenna Malony (Viking Childrens Books)
- Edmund Unravels by Andrew Kolb (Nancy Paulsen Books)
- Where Bear? by Sophy Henn (Philomel Books)
Episode Transcript:
The first book is Changes: A Child's First Poetry Collection Poems. The poems are by Charlotte Zolotow, illustrated by Tiphanie Beeke, and this comes to us from Sourcebooks. Here is a beautiful, beautiful collection of poems from Charlotte Zolotow through all of the seasons and each one, I feel, is more perfect than the one before it. just perfectly capturing the way that poetry is supposed to capture a moment, invoke feeling in us, make us reflect, challenge us to think about something. These are just lovely. And I'd like to just read you one [poem]. This is called "You".
I like shadows.
I like sun.
I like you
more than anyone.
I like summer.
I like the cold.
I'll even like you
when you're old.
I like work.
I like play.
I like you
every which way.
Now if that doesn't start off this segment right, I don't know what does. One poem after the other, I feel, is just something so special that I want to share with all of my readers in my school. And I can't wait to see these poems in pockets for Poem in your Pocket in April. Excellent collection of poems by Charlotte Zolotow.
Next up is The Baseball Player and the Walrus by Ben Loory. Illustrations are by Alex Latimer. This comes to us from Dial Books for Young Readers. And here is an outrageous story about a baseball player who decided he wanted to buy a walrus. And everyone was like, "No! No! No! It's going to cost you way too much. you're never going to be able to do it." But he wanted to be able tot take care of this walrus. And as the story goes on the baseball player hits some hard times and runs out of money and has to give up the walrus. But the real payoff here is what he ends up giving up for his happiness. And I think you'll really like it. The illustrations are wonderful cartoon style illustrations. Colors pop off of the page. And it's a walrus and a baseball player who's just sad and heartbroken over a walrus. You'll like this one. It's so fun to read aloud.
The third book is Ready Rabbit Gets Ready! by Brenna Malony. This comes to us from Viking and the illustrations are done through photograph with posed figures. And Ready Rabbit is this lovely, kind-of-like sock bunny (really cute) who is maybe Kindergarten-age, getting ready to go to school, no less. And we keep running into, I'm sure you're hearing me filling through the pages as I'm talking about it to you about it, Ready Rabbit, every time mom says, "It's time to get ready," gets distracted by toys or by his imagination or by wanting to play something else, and its is just something that… I mean, I have a four-year-old and I'm relating to every single distraction that this rabbit is going through. The photos are just wonderful to stare at, to look at and to wonder, "how large are these miniatures?" And if you turn to the very back of the book you will see in Brenda's author photo that she has this Ready Rabbit, and it's only about maybe six inches tall. So to know that all of these are created on that scale, and photographs so clean on this white background… it just is something new to look at and something that I think a lot of kids will relate to when they are getting ready to go to school.
Number four is Edmund Unravels. The words and pictures are by Andrew Kolb and this comes to us from Nancy Paulsen Books. And this… oh my word! The colors will pop on this. The graphic illustrations are deduced as much as possible to basic geometric shapes. And it's about a ball of yarn that wants to go see the world. And of course every ball of yarn starts with an and as Edmund unravels to explore new things we find the end of the beginning and, of course, the beginning is the end. As he goes and explores he gets smaller and smaller, and sort of the rest of the world becomes bigger and bigger until his family is able to pull him back at at a time when he needs to know that his family is around him. The pictures here are... my word, they're so pretty and they are so vibrantly colored. The book itself is almost eye candy. It's almost just to look at the colors just opened to any random page will make you smile. Lovely. Edmund Unravels. Make sure you check that out. What a great, unusual story taking an inanimate object and wondering what kind of journey it could go on. I feel like that is a conversation we could have with many, many readers.
And the final book, the best book ever this week, is called Where Bear? And it's by Sophy Henn. And this just might be a perfect picture book. Where Bear? stars of boy and his bear, and the boy just continues to ask that reprised, "Where bear?" Where should you go? Where do you want to go as you're growing and growing larger? Where should your home be? And the boy searches all over to find "Is it a zoo? How about if we bring you to a toy shop? What about the jungle?" And no place is right. And so the boy keeps asking, "Well then where, bear?" And finally we find the just right place. But the other thing that works so well is not just the terse language in this book, but also the way that each background in this book is just a solid pastel color, a pastel and gray color. And we just see that boy and the bear, who are basically gray and white, black and white, right up front and right up close. They are the star of our book, and that's where our eyes will go for the entire book. It's a marvel to read. I think you're going to read and just sigh and be thankful that such wonderful books exist in this world. And that's why I'm calling Where Bear? by Sophy Henn the best book ever this week. Way to go!
I like shadows.
I like sun.
I like you
more than anyone.
I like summer.
I like the cold.
I'll even like you
when you're old.
I like work.
I like play.
I like you
every which way.
Now if that doesn't start off this segment right, I don't know what does. One poem after the other, I feel, is just something so special that I want to share with all of my readers in my school. And I can't wait to see these poems in pockets for Poem in your Pocket in April. Excellent collection of poems by Charlotte Zolotow.
Next up is The Baseball Player and the Walrus by Ben Loory. Illustrations are by Alex Latimer. This comes to us from Dial Books for Young Readers. And here is an outrageous story about a baseball player who decided he wanted to buy a walrus. And everyone was like, "No! No! No! It's going to cost you way too much. you're never going to be able to do it." But he wanted to be able tot take care of this walrus. And as the story goes on the baseball player hits some hard times and runs out of money and has to give up the walrus. But the real payoff here is what he ends up giving up for his happiness. And I think you'll really like it. The illustrations are wonderful cartoon style illustrations. Colors pop off of the page. And it's a walrus and a baseball player who's just sad and heartbroken over a walrus. You'll like this one. It's so fun to read aloud.
The third book is Ready Rabbit Gets Ready! by Brenna Malony. This comes to us from Viking and the illustrations are done through photograph with posed figures. And Ready Rabbit is this lovely, kind-of-like sock bunny (really cute) who is maybe Kindergarten-age, getting ready to go to school, no less. And we keep running into, I'm sure you're hearing me filling through the pages as I'm talking about it to you about it, Ready Rabbit, every time mom says, "It's time to get ready," gets distracted by toys or by his imagination or by wanting to play something else, and its is just something that… I mean, I have a four-year-old and I'm relating to every single distraction that this rabbit is going through. The photos are just wonderful to stare at, to look at and to wonder, "how large are these miniatures?" And if you turn to the very back of the book you will see in Brenda's author photo that she has this Ready Rabbit, and it's only about maybe six inches tall. So to know that all of these are created on that scale, and photographs so clean on this white background… it just is something new to look at and something that I think a lot of kids will relate to when they are getting ready to go to school.
Number four is Edmund Unravels. The words and pictures are by Andrew Kolb and this comes to us from Nancy Paulsen Books. And this… oh my word! The colors will pop on this. The graphic illustrations are deduced as much as possible to basic geometric shapes. And it's about a ball of yarn that wants to go see the world. And of course every ball of yarn starts with an and as Edmund unravels to explore new things we find the end of the beginning and, of course, the beginning is the end. As he goes and explores he gets smaller and smaller, and sort of the rest of the world becomes bigger and bigger until his family is able to pull him back at at a time when he needs to know that his family is around him. The pictures here are... my word, they're so pretty and they are so vibrantly colored. The book itself is almost eye candy. It's almost just to look at the colors just opened to any random page will make you smile. Lovely. Edmund Unravels. Make sure you check that out. What a great, unusual story taking an inanimate object and wondering what kind of journey it could go on. I feel like that is a conversation we could have with many, many readers.
And the final book, the best book ever this week, is called Where Bear? And it's by Sophy Henn. And this just might be a perfect picture book. Where Bear? stars of boy and his bear, and the boy just continues to ask that reprised, "Where bear?" Where should you go? Where do you want to go as you're growing and growing larger? Where should your home be? And the boy searches all over to find "Is it a zoo? How about if we bring you to a toy shop? What about the jungle?" And no place is right. And so the boy keeps asking, "Well then where, bear?" And finally we find the just right place. But the other thing that works so well is not just the terse language in this book, but also the way that each background in this book is just a solid pastel color, a pastel and gray color. And we just see that boy and the bear, who are basically gray and white, black and white, right up front and right up close. They are the star of our book, and that's where our eyes will go for the entire book. It's a marvel to read. I think you're going to read and just sigh and be thankful that such wonderful books exist in this world. And that's why I'm calling Where Bear? by Sophy Henn the best book ever this week. Way to go!
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