- Stanley the Farmer by William Bee (Peachtree Publishers)
- Spectacular Spots by Susan Stockdale (Peachtree Publishers)
- Rodeo Red by Maripat Perkins, illustrated by Molly Idle (Peachtree Publishers)
- P. Zonka Lays an Egg by Julia Paschkis (Peachtree Publishers)
- Random Body Parts: Gross Anatomy Riddles in Verse by Leslie Bulion, illustrated by Mike Lowery (Peachtree Publishers)
Episode Transcript:
The first book is William Bee's Stanley the Farmer. This is part of a series. The other books in the series include Stanley the Builder, Stanley's Diner, and Stanley's Garage. And Stanley is a guinea pig! And in this case, Stanley the Farmer, Stanley is taking care of his farm, including harvesting the crops and working with some friends to water the seeds and just do that normal farm maintenance. The illustrations here work really well for a young audience. The colors are bold. They pop. There's a thick line surround all of the illustrations, so that makes the characters stand out, too. And there's a simplicity to it that causes you to focus on the character and what Stanley is doing day to day. And my word, he's cute. So there's, too. And it's a guinea pig! Lovely book. Stanley the Farmer.
Next book up is called Spectacular Spots and this is by Susan Stockdale. Susan writes wonderful, beautiful rhyming books and the paintings she creates to go with them are ones just to gaze at and fall into. They're beautiful. And this is no different. In this book, obviously by it's title Spectacular Spots, we're looking at animals with spots. And that includes dozing hogs, dashing horses, clinging frogs. You're hearing all of these mighty verbs, right? All of these really great words that Susan has chosen to describe the animals. You see spots that are round, spots that are kind of funny shaped. And there's even some spots on animals that you might not have anticipated. Like, I don't relate spots with owls. I don't relate spots with horses. And yet when we look closely there is that. I like that Susan, in the back of her book, included sort of a summary of all of the different animals, a little bit more information about each animal and its spots and how it uses its spots to protect itself in nature or to send messages to mates, to send messages to predators, to send messages. It's really neat how nature uses spots and I think that Susan Stockdale has shared that very well, very effectively with readers.
Book number three is called Rodeo Red. It's written by Maripat Perkins and illustrated by Molly Idle. This is Maripat's first book and it's outstanding. The text stands completely apart from the illustrations in that there are times when the text feels like it's going one direction and the illustrations are revealing something else. And that makes this book really magical. In this case there's a girl who loves cowboy stuff, western gear, western-themed things, and she is joined now by a new baby in the house. So she's struggling with where she fits in. Where's her place when this new partner comes to town. And it includes some sort of funny things like you would expect cowboys to take care of on the ranch like rattling up the cattle and moseying things from here to there. and defending your territory. But it's just done so well in the way that the text and the illustrations have to work hand-in-hand to work this story. And Molly's illustrations! You know her from Flora and the Penguin and Tea Rex and books like that, and these illustrations are no different. She's got beautiful, round lines. Very emotive characters. And the perspective she shows all the time just makes you feel like you're in an old western flick. It's really great! This book is called Rodeo Red, and I know you're gonna have a lot of fun reading it aloud.
Book number four is P. Zonka Lays an Egg by Julie Paschkis and I lost myself a number of times in Julie's watercolors in this book because they are just beautiful beautiful beautiful. This is a book essentially about Russian eggs or, rather, Ukrainian eggs and about a chicken who cannot lay eggs or doesn't want to lay eggs. All of the other chickens are kind of teasing her for it. "Why don't you try it P. Zonka?" "Why don't you at least give it a try?" Well, she tries and what comes out is this beautiful, patterned, decorative egg and it's gorgeous. I love that these eggs are actually called pyzankas, and so Julie has taken that name and created a character from it to let readers know that language better. The colors on this book just pop off of the page and the eyes are drawn right to these great patterns, these swirling lines, these zigzag lines, these juxtaposed colors. It's really… it's a work of art. Julie did a wonderful job on P. Zonka Lays an Egg.
And the best book ever this week for me is called Random Body Parts: Gross Anatomy Riddles in Verse. It's written by Leslie Bulion and illustrated by Mike Lowery. And just to give you a sample of what we're dealing with here, these are riddles about different body parts that the reader then gets to guess. Here's the opening riddle. It says:
RIDDLE ME THIS
Of course you have a body,
But do you have a clue,
Where all the body parts you've got are found
And what they do?
You think you have a handle,
On your anatomy,
But can you handle tricky riddle poems?
Come on--let's see.
Some riddles will seem cinch,
Some challengingly tough.
Your organs lurk between the lines
As you'll find, soon enough.
Search head to toe to locate
Each random body part.
Now keep your eyes peeled…
Knuckle down…
The game's afoot…
Let's start!
With each poem describing whatever different body part, there also is at the end of it an information paragraph saying this is what the body part is and this is what the body part does. It's a wonderful guessing poem book and I look forward to sharing it in April here, being that it's poetry month and we'll be skyping with other classes around the country and reading poems like this. This will be a really fun game to play to have people guess. I also love that Leslie has taken on a great number of different rhyme schemes, different poetry styles, to offer something really special to readers. And it's one that I think it's hard to make poetry memorable and enjoyable and also introduce really good, meaty, challenging words, but make it easy to read for the audience. And I think Leslie did a perfect job with this. Mike Lowery's illustrations are really fun and cute to go along with it, too. And they add just a little bit of humor in the story. And that is why I'm calling Random Body Parts: Gross Anatomy Riddles in Verse by Leslie Bulion and illustrated by Mike Lowery the best book ever this week! Way to go!
Next book up is called Spectacular Spots and this is by Susan Stockdale. Susan writes wonderful, beautiful rhyming books and the paintings she creates to go with them are ones just to gaze at and fall into. They're beautiful. And this is no different. In this book, obviously by it's title Spectacular Spots, we're looking at animals with spots. And that includes dozing hogs, dashing horses, clinging frogs. You're hearing all of these mighty verbs, right? All of these really great words that Susan has chosen to describe the animals. You see spots that are round, spots that are kind of funny shaped. And there's even some spots on animals that you might not have anticipated. Like, I don't relate spots with owls. I don't relate spots with horses. And yet when we look closely there is that. I like that Susan, in the back of her book, included sort of a summary of all of the different animals, a little bit more information about each animal and its spots and how it uses its spots to protect itself in nature or to send messages to mates, to send messages to predators, to send messages. It's really neat how nature uses spots and I think that Susan Stockdale has shared that very well, very effectively with readers.
Book number three is called Rodeo Red. It's written by Maripat Perkins and illustrated by Molly Idle. This is Maripat's first book and it's outstanding. The text stands completely apart from the illustrations in that there are times when the text feels like it's going one direction and the illustrations are revealing something else. And that makes this book really magical. In this case there's a girl who loves cowboy stuff, western gear, western-themed things, and she is joined now by a new baby in the house. So she's struggling with where she fits in. Where's her place when this new partner comes to town. And it includes some sort of funny things like you would expect cowboys to take care of on the ranch like rattling up the cattle and moseying things from here to there. and defending your territory. But it's just done so well in the way that the text and the illustrations have to work hand-in-hand to work this story. And Molly's illustrations! You know her from Flora and the Penguin and Tea Rex and books like that, and these illustrations are no different. She's got beautiful, round lines. Very emotive characters. And the perspective she shows all the time just makes you feel like you're in an old western flick. It's really great! This book is called Rodeo Red, and I know you're gonna have a lot of fun reading it aloud.
Book number four is P. Zonka Lays an Egg by Julie Paschkis and I lost myself a number of times in Julie's watercolors in this book because they are just beautiful beautiful beautiful. This is a book essentially about Russian eggs or, rather, Ukrainian eggs and about a chicken who cannot lay eggs or doesn't want to lay eggs. All of the other chickens are kind of teasing her for it. "Why don't you try it P. Zonka?" "Why don't you at least give it a try?" Well, she tries and what comes out is this beautiful, patterned, decorative egg and it's gorgeous. I love that these eggs are actually called pyzankas, and so Julie has taken that name and created a character from it to let readers know that language better. The colors on this book just pop off of the page and the eyes are drawn right to these great patterns, these swirling lines, these zigzag lines, these juxtaposed colors. It's really… it's a work of art. Julie did a wonderful job on P. Zonka Lays an Egg.
And the best book ever this week for me is called Random Body Parts: Gross Anatomy Riddles in Verse. It's written by Leslie Bulion and illustrated by Mike Lowery. And just to give you a sample of what we're dealing with here, these are riddles about different body parts that the reader then gets to guess. Here's the opening riddle. It says:
RIDDLE ME THIS
Of course you have a body,
But do you have a clue,
Where all the body parts you've got are found
And what they do?
You think you have a handle,
On your anatomy,
But can you handle tricky riddle poems?
Come on--let's see.
Some riddles will seem cinch,
Some challengingly tough.
Your organs lurk between the lines
As you'll find, soon enough.
Search head to toe to locate
Each random body part.
Now keep your eyes peeled…
Knuckle down…
The game's afoot…
Let's start!
With each poem describing whatever different body part, there also is at the end of it an information paragraph saying this is what the body part is and this is what the body part does. It's a wonderful guessing poem book and I look forward to sharing it in April here, being that it's poetry month and we'll be skyping with other classes around the country and reading poems like this. This will be a really fun game to play to have people guess. I also love that Leslie has taken on a great number of different rhyme schemes, different poetry styles, to offer something really special to readers. And it's one that I think it's hard to make poetry memorable and enjoyable and also introduce really good, meaty, challenging words, but make it easy to read for the audience. And I think Leslie did a perfect job with this. Mike Lowery's illustrations are really fun and cute to go along with it, too. And they add just a little bit of humor in the story. And that is why I'm calling Random Body Parts: Gross Anatomy Riddles in Verse by Leslie Bulion and illustrated by Mike Lowery the best book ever this week! Way to go!
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