nomadreader

I still have a ridiculous backlog of unpublished reviews from my end-of-year reading binge, but eventually, those will stop, and I will have to figure out how to talk about picture books on a semi-regular basis. Because some days, I spend more time reading picture books to Hawthorne than I do reading my own books. As he is only five months old and has no concept of story or message yet, I am relishing having the ability to be The Decider of What We Read. All he really cares about is that the pictures are somewhat colorful and interesting, that he getting to sit on my lap and snuggle, that he gets to hear my voice (I talk a lot, and he was around my voice all the time while I was pregnant, so it still comforts him), and increasingly that he can actually TOUCH the book itself. So mostly I pick up the picture books at the library that look really fun. Sometimes I am very right: Other times I am very, very wrong: To help get better at picking picture books, I started a Goodrea...

Welcome to the first day of 2008 Cybils Finalists : Easy Readers at nomadreader! The Cybils are children's and young adult literary awards awarded by book bloggers. The 2009 nomination period has passed, and the panel is busy reading all of the nominations. The finalists will be announced on January 1, 2010. I'd love to serve on a future Cybils panel, so I'm reading all of the finalists from 2008 and making my case for which book should win. This week, I'm looking at the 2008 Easy Reader finalists. Each day I'll review on of the five finalists, and I'll bring you my verdict on Saturday. It's no secret I adore Mo Willems. Knuffle Bunny is one of my favorite children's books, and Knuffle Bunny Too is perhaps my favorite children's picture book. I thoroughly enjoy his blog as well.  The Elephant and Piggie series consistently manages to delight young children and adults. Although I can't speak from experience, these are books I would not tire ...

The House in the Night is a wonderfully simple nursery-rhyme-like story with beautiful pictures. The story, inspired by an actual nursery rhyme, involves a young girl reading a book about a bird and then imagining she is flying on the bird's back to explore the universe. The pictures appear almost like etchings. They are predominantly black and white, but each picture includes selected areas of yellow. The book literally illuminates the universe by looking at the size, shape and scope of objects. It's a book whose power lies in the simplicity of words, the beauty of pictures, and its seemingly endless ability to incite the imagination of children and adults alike. It's the perfect book to read before going to bed.

The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain is a dense and fascinating graphic memoir. Peter Sis recounts his childhood in Prague, Czechoslovakia in the 1960's through elaborate illustrations and carefully chosen words. There are two two-page spreads that include excerpts from his boyhood diary. Although it is a memoir, Sis tells a more universal story of life in Prague and the Eastern bloc during this time as well. It's a fascinating and riveting look into the historical period. This book is dense with historical information, and Sis deftly uses pictures to tell the story of his boyhood. The illustrations in this book use color in a highly emotive way to enhance the story. Because the book is so honest, the depictions of this complex time may not be understandable to very young children. Rating: 4 stars (out of 4) - life- changingly good Challenges: 100+ Reading Challenge, Support Your Local Library

The Pout-Pout Fish takes place in an underwater world of diverse, bright colorful fish and sea creatures. The pout-pout fish is convinced his face forms a permanent pout, and there is nothing he can do to change it. His underwater friends take turns trying to change his mind and get him to turn the frown upside down. None of the pout-pout fish's friends have any luck cheering him up, but when a new, beautiful silver fish comes to visit, she plants a kiss on the pout-pout fish's lips, and he suddenly realizes he's a kiss-kiss fish with cheer to spread. The illustrations in this book are colorful and interesting. This story of friendship and G-rated love is ideal for story time because there is so much repetition of the poetic lines. Rating: 2 stars (out of 4) - liked it Challenges: 100+ Reading Challenge, Support Your Local Library

Knuffle Bunny Too is a sequel to 2004's delightful Knuffle Bunny . Trixie is now in pre -kindergarten, and she talks a lot. For show and tell, Trixie brings her beloved Knuffle Bunny to school, but she soon discovers Sonja also brought a knuffle bunny. Again, Mo Willems infuses the book with funny moments, but the story is still simple and touching. This books is more advanced than Knuffle Bunny , but the pictures are still incredibly captivating. I would gladly hang the two-page spread of Washington Square Park on my living room wall; it truly is a work of art. Rating: 4 stars (out of 4) - life- changingly good (or the book everyone I know who has children will be receiving for the next holiday) Reading Challenges: 100+ Reading Challenge, Support Your Local Library

Knuffle Bunny is the story of Trixie, a child too young to talk yet. Trixie and her father go to the laundromat in their Brooklyn neighborhood one day, and Trixie accidentally washes her treasured stuffed animal, Knuffle Bunny. The story is simple, but it's both funny and sweet. As good as the story is, the illustrations are better. Mo Willems draws the colorful characters atop black and white photographs of Brooklyn. The pictures are utterly captivating and Willems infuses Trixie's gibberish with unique phrases children will delight in repeating. Rating: 3.5 stars (out of 4) - really loved it Challenges: 100+ Reading Challenge, Support Local Library

Flotsam tells the story of a young boy’s day at the ocean. The story is told entirely through pictures. Despite the lack of words, the story is as vast as its depictions of the ocean. Flotsam means something that floats, according to the book jacket. While this young boy enjoys a day at the beach, the reader sees he has brought microscope and a magnifying glass with him. He is curious about the world, and he studies the details of several animals. The real adventure begins when the boy discovers a camera. Until this point, the story could easily be classified as contemporary realism, but the images on the film depict such things as sea creatures sitting on living room furniture. Still, the boy is transported through this fanciful realm of the underwater. Through his powers of observation and with his scientific tools, he is able to learn about the unknown lives of sea creatures. He also discovers photographs of past finders of the camera. The pictures tell this story, but each page ha...

First the Egg exemplifies the reasons the ALA awards Caldecott honors on picture books for the pictures: pictures may tell stories more powerfully than words alone. The story is simple and succinct, but the pictures tell the story. This picture book is nonfiction, and it is informative, but its information more powerfully told through the pictures. The backdrop of the pages are paintings. Through the colors of these paintings and the cutouts of the pages, Seeger makes the connection between eggs and chickens, tadpoles and frogs, seem even more literal. The first page, for example shows a cutout of an egg. When the reader turns the page, it becomes clear the egg was part of the chicken, and the cutout now uses the yellow from the underneath page to form the body of the baby chicken. This theme of continuity and connectedness continues throughout the short book. The pictures in this story are sure to delight and amaze young readers, but the pictures and visual displays are cool enough t...

(Note: I'm taking Children's Literature this semester, so I'll be including the reviews I do for class here as well.) Different Like Coco is a delightful biography of Coco Chanel, the famous fashion designer. The book traces Chanel's life from birth, through the death of her mother when Coco was twelve. Coco had to move to an orphanage, where she learned to sew. Women were only allowed a few jobs in the early 1900s, and luckily for Chanel, tailoring was one of them. She soon began making her own clothes. While this books tells the inspiring tale of Coco Chanel, who surpassed many obstacles because of her gender and financial status, the overarching theme of the book is that Coco Chanel was always different, and people always liked her. In addition to being a good biography, the book also covers history, including World War I, nicely. Although it deals with some difficult topics quite honestly, Matthews manages to maintain a hopeful theme. There is enough history includ...