By Helena Baek; Translated by Sophie Bowman
Lori the Librarian |
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Magic Candies By Helena Baek; Translated by Sophie Bowman If the title makes you think of Alice in Wonderland or the Jefferson Airplane lyrics, “One pill makes you larger And one pill makes you small,” you’re not off in your thinking. However as you read page after page of this picture book you might possibly be entranced, as I was, with the dreamy, hazy background environments and the fabulous handmade miniature figurines. I will let you decide if this is a book you would like to share with your special person. The story follows Tong Tong, a child who plays alone and not with others. When he needs to buy new marbles, the shopkeeper gives him hard, sweet candies instead. The candies resemble his marbles and as the boy tries each one the different sizes, shapes and colors give him very special, or as one adult reader said, “hallucinatory” experiences. Helena Baek’s storyline wonderfully explores the senses and emotions. The talking couch will grab all young readers attention especially since it raises the smelly issue of farts. The candy that has him interacting with his father overflows with a powerful love. With a bubble gum candy he is comforted and can converse with his dead grandma any time he wants. The last candy, a clear, quiet one, brings him outside where he sees another child. It allows him to reach out and speak and we are left with the lovely possibility that the child has now found a friend. The illustrations and the language and placement of the story words in this picture book are all refreshing. There are full page, double page, snapshot size illustrations. There is black lettering, then red, then handwritten, five words on a page or one hundred and five words on a page. Each page is original. I think it’s a cool picture book. Take a look and make up your own mind if you like it, want to share it or can’t get into it. I’d love to hear what you think.
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Chez Bob By Bob Shea Haha, lazy Bob, the large, water reptile, does not see what’s hitting him! Even though his plan to have a constantly full belly and to be so rich that he’ll have golden teeth and a gold hat totally backfires on him this is what makes his story all the more endearing and filled with chuckles.
Bob enjoys enticing the birds to his snout to munch on especially seasoned seeds. The birds feels so comfortable around Bob that they create a new town nearby. In fact he hits it off with them so well that when a storm comes the sweet birds take refuge in his belly to ride it out. It is at this point that Bob is struck with a strong dose of conscience: should he eat them or not? The oversized exclamations from Bob’s mouth as well as Bob’s very enlarged and expressive eyeballs make this a cute picture book to view and to read aloud using a loud reptilian voice. It will entertain both preschoolers and kindergartners and their read aloud partner a great deal. Do You Speak Fish? Written by DJ Corchin; Illustrated by Dan Dougherty
After getting past the regular graphic illustrations of the cover and following pages, I was pleasantly surprised upon reading this picture book. What really took me in and made me want to write a blog entry was the pacing of and the importance of the storyline. A boy says hello to a fish, lion, and bee and when they don’t respond to him and ignore him, he considers them to be awfully rude. It takes a tree to explain to the boy that he is not the center of the universe, even though he thinks he deserves to be and that other world beings including the fish, lion or bee are not obligated to speak and understand Kid talk. The boy is pleasantly surprised when Tree offers to teach him Fish. So upon his return walk he can converse with the fish and it sounds like, “ Blurp, Blip, Blurp Blurp.” These back and forth conversations with the animals are adorable and young children will enjoy them. They’ll like that in the conversation with Lion, the boy makes a silly speaking error which makes Lion fall down laughing and makes the boy embarrassed. As the subtitle says, “[This is] a story about communicating and understanding” and I think Upper Preschool through Grade Two teachers should share this one with their classrooms. Without being preachy, a moral lesson of how we should live in this world is shared: “They always worked to understand each other…and their world got a whole lot bigger.” Thankfully, by the end of the book the colors and graphics worked so much better and melded nicely with the story line. Never, Not Ever! By Beatrice Alemagna Olsen Finds Her Wings Nora Surojegin and Pirkko-Liisa Surojegin Before these two picture books are returned to the public library I wanted to share them with you. These are books that are age appropriate for younger children and deserve to have a few readings apiece. They deal with children’s concerns about separating from their parents in a humorous way and finding their self worth in a gentle manner. In the first story Pascaline, a bat, adamantly declares that she will not attend school with the words, “Never, not ever.” Your young readers will definitely enjoy repeating this phrase at louder and louder decibels. Everything backfires for Pascaline when her parents shrink and she must take them along to the first day of school. The illustrations are very funny as they show the other students bemoaning the fact that they are in school and show Pascaline attempting to keep her parents hidden but inevitably getting into trouble. Everyone except for Pascaline enjoys school especially when she has no one to hug her at the end of the day. When her parents return to their normal sizes and suggest that they return to school with her on the next day, she counters with her favorite refrain, “Never, not ever.” This is a great first day of school book or a first day of anything book when a child digs in their heels and refuses to go somewhere. Preschoolers and kindergartners will enjoy it. The second book has lovely watercolor illustrations of a young owl, Olwen, and his frosty forest home. Like many young children, Olwen wants to find out what she can do in this world. Her wise mother sends her off to, “try something new.” Olwen meets and tries to imitate Hopfoot, Growlmouth and Patterpaw, but sadly can’t do what hare, bear and squirrel can do. They encourage her and say that someday she’ll find out what she can do. Mama believes in Olwen and tells her that she can do wonderful things if she spreads her wings and jumps With a proud hoot Olwen shares her flight with her siblings and then heads to bed. This sweet story and the detailed, furry creatures in their soft, snowy landscape make this a wonderful story of self worth as well as a goodnight story for younger preschoolers.
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Author For 29 years I had the best job as School Librarian in the Aaron Kushner Library for grades Pre K-3 at the Solomon Schechter Day School of Greater Boston. Although I am retired, I remain Lori the Librarian. Archives
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