Kid's Book Blog

by James Howe

PreSchool-Grade 2

This is a great story about acceptance and pursuing one's dream. When Brontorina Apatosaurus appears at the door of Madame Lucille's Dance Academy for Boys and Girls, she faces rejection. Young Clara and Jack tug at Madame to accept her, while naysayers jeer at her lack of proper shoes. Finally, Madame admits Brontorina, and humorous scenes show little boys and girls doing arabesques, relevés, and jetés, while enormous Brontorina gracefully crashes into the ceiling.

Madame concludes that the new pupil is just too big. Brontorina turns to leave, a dinosaur-size tear falling from her eye. Then the teacher has a realization: The problem is not that you are too big. The problem is that my studio is too small, and the academy gets relocated and renamed.

A quiet fusion of pathos, comedy, and passion is echoed in the painterly, softly textured, muted oil illustrations. The final picture of the orange dinosaur perched like a bird atop a dancing triceratops, silhouetted against the setting sun, is priceless.

A Preston the Pig Story
by Colin McNaughton
Ages 4-8

Preston was walking home from school when SUDDENLY...Preston avoids the scary wolf by chance when he forgets to do one thing or another. The wolf, who is lerking around every corner is left without his afternoon snack while Preston safely navigates home to his mother who gives him a big hug.

Young readers will delight in knowing more than the happily oblivious porcine hero. The art is ideal for group sharing. This story will make a good combination with other fairy tales in which all the pigs might not experience such a happy ending, and is a refreshing relief from the classic tale where the only way to save your hide is to be smart, industrious, and build a very strong house. Zany fun that's perfect for young audiences.

The vibrant illustrations and textured colors  boldly leap off the page against a background of ample white space. The sheer fun of the rhythmic text and the large alphabet letters work well for a read-aloud audience, but the busy, engaging details of the peas in their various worker modes are better suited for one-on-one exploration that young children will want to pore over again and again.—

by David Catrow
Grades K-3

Max Spaniel is a daffy hound dog who decides to go on a dinosaur dig. He takes his trusty butterfly net and hard hat on the expedition. The silly dog mistakes a football for a dinosaur head, a Lincoln log for a dinosaur rib, a water hose for a dinosaur tail and so on. The dim witted dog puts the junk together and builds a dinosaur!

Kids will be endlessly amused by the silly dog and his adventure.  New readers will laugh out loud as they follow the fantastical thoughts of this kooky hound. The ingenious story, by David Catrow, is easy to read with lots of visual humor.

by Tedd Arnold
Grades K-3

Fly Guy and Buzz are back in this outrageously funny adventure told in three simple chapters. Buzz likes to play Hide-and-go-Seek with Fly Guy, his pet fly. Fly Guy usually hides in the trash can but disastor strikes when the trash collecter comes before Buzz can find Fly Guy. Fly Guy is carted off to the dump. When Buzz tries to find him, he is faced with a multitude of flies that look, act, and sound exactly like his pal. And every one of those flies can call his name—Buzz! Fortunately, the one and only Fly Guy thinks they are still playing the game. He has been hanging upside down from the visor of Buzz's cap, as close as any good friend can get.

This is a silly story that boys will like. The squiggly drawn pictures and the bright colors help to tell the story of a boy and his pet fly. The words are large and easy to read. Each pages has a couple of sentences and the great illustrations to hold early reader's attention. There's no mistaking Arnold's hilarious cartoon illustrations, and in this new addition to a popular series, there are plenty of them to enjoy.

By Louise Bonnett-Rampersaud
PreSchool-Grade 1

"If you're having a bear over to play,
There are things you should know,
There are things you should say.
I'll tell you the rules--
Numbers one up to ten.
Then have Mom or Dad read them...
Again...and again!"

This cautionary guidebook provides readers with 10 important rules to follow when having a bear over to play. Bears are rambunctious, messy, and wild. The young boy's animal playmate behaves like a 400-pound toddler. This boisterous romp is good for reading aloud but explores no new ground.

The illustrations are full of movement and energy as they spill across the page. The bear's uninhibited strength and great size are conveyed through the illustrations use of perspective. Nearly every scene contains an object in midair and thus a sense of the bear's naivety regarding the rules.

If you like Laura Numeroff's If you give a mouse a cookie...then you will LOVE this one.

By Dave Horowitz
Grades 1-2
This book takes well known nursery rhymes, mixes them together, and creates a story about conquering your fears. Humpty Dumpty has a fall but recovers after the doctor tends to him. However, he is scared and doesn't see the point of climbing walls or doing anything. He sits at home and watches TV in his underwear. After a spider scares him out of his house, Humpty Dumpty ventures out to the wall again. He finds that the King's horse has gotten stuck and needs help. Humpty Dumpty rises to the occasion and saves the day.

Moral of the story, "...from that day on, Humpty Dumpty never climbed again with out the proper safety equipment. Or pants."

This is a very funny book. The font is large and easy to read. The pictures match the theme and style of the book perfect.  There is a good storyline that children will be somewhat familiar with and will get the jokes. The pictures and story aren't too feminine or masculine.

All in all, it is just a great picture book.

Penelope's poppy always wears khaki pants. When he finds a hole in one pair, he asks Penelope to patch it up. Penelope likes to sew . . . but this is a big job. Penelope struggles, but with a little help from her mama, she gets the job done.

Cute illustations of the dolls through out the story called wooberry's dolls  (Penelope and Poppy). It's a cute story about a little girl and her poppy and how she like to sew and he gives her a pair that has a hole to fix. She discovers that this whole is harder to repair than she thought. The dolls and illustrations are cute but, I was disappointed with the overall story.

Ages 4-8
This is a cute and sparkly book about a cupcake, named Vanilla, that feels left out. All of Vanilla's brothers and sisters have been picked (to be eaten. Thankfully, the death of the cupcake is never mentioned or discussed). Vanilla runs into a lonely candle and together they search for things to decorate Vanilla until they decide that the candle should hop on Vanilla's head and be the decorations!

This is was a very cute book, illistrated in pastels. I also liked how there was text to the book and then the dialoge between the cupcake and the candle were with the pictures, almost like a comic book. When the candle and Vanilla were trying out different decorations it was really funny. The last decoration they tried was a squirrell. That just cracked me up. There was a picture of a cupcake with a squirirll on top.

A very, cery cute cupcake.

Ages 4-8

"It was dark. It was stormy. It was night." The opening lines to this easy reader is a really great example of using simple words and repeition to get a point across to kids. To a young reader, "It was a dark and stormy night" may be a daunting sentence to read. Half of the words in that sentence are not familar to those little eyes causing frustration. But when the kids already know, "It was," the sentence goes much easier. Plus, what a great opening line to a book!


The storyline is cute: Melvin has a flat tire and needs a new one. He rolls into a spooky junkyard and finds just what he needs: a golden! But when the junkyard ghost asks, "Who took my golden tire?" Melvin gets scared.

The illistrations by David Shannon are vibrant and so very cute. This is a great boy book because it is about trucks, but girls won't be offended by it either because the art and  personified car is not overly masculine.

My only complaint is that sometimes the word placement is wonky, not exaclty left to right. This might confuse a new reader. OR it might make reading the book more interesting. Not sure.

I really liked this book.