Great Messages Beyond a Good Story

You may recall from a past post that I get easily annoyed by people casually writing “lose” when the mean “loose” and vice versa, or writing “alot”, or misusing apostrophes. Therefore, I was completely thrilled by Greedy Apostrophe: A Cautionary Tale by Jan Carr, illustrated by Ethan Long.  A very funny picture book that is not boringly didactic, or a boring punctuation lesson, but simply a funny story that will hopefully get into kids’ heads (you see how I used that apostrophe there?) and help them remember how to use apostrophes correctly. The story begins when punctuation marks go to the hiring hall to receive jobs.  Commas, question marks, and exclamation points all get tasks. But then all that’s left is a job for a possessive. Everyone gets nervous because Greedy Apostrophe is well known as kind of a jerk who wants to insert himself all over the place.  The Director sternly goes over the rules for his usage and off he goes.  Greedy Apostrophe does exactly what he shouldn’t. At a toy store he puts himself into signs for Puppets, Marbles, Yo-Yos, and Kites turning them into Puppet’s, Marble’s, Yo-Yo’s, and Kite’s.  He is naughty and terrible, but when he tries it in a school the class quickly sees the mistakes and tries to catch him. Even if I didn’t like the lesson of this story, I’d still think it was a fun read-aloud as I enjoy books like this where something unusual is animated  (like the Scrambled States of America, crayons,  or Chopsticks.)

What a sweet story! Brimsby’s Hats by Andrew Prahin is about Brimsby, a hat maker who leads a quiet routine life in his village. Every day he makes hats and drinks tea with his friend. But then his friend decides to follow his own dream of being a sea captain and leaves.  Brimsby is very lonely and the changing view outside his window shows that quite a long time passes.  Out for a walk one snowy day he comes across some birds who are having trouble in the snow.  A clever and unexpected choice turns Brimsby’s life around as it brings him new friends, new happiness, and new adventures.  If I was doing a storytime about hats this would be a new book to add to my hat collection.

Noah and the Space Ark by Laura Cecil, illustrated by Emma Chichester Clark is an interesting story to me because of it simultaneously being a retelling of Noah’s Ark at the same time as a futuristic story with the message that we’d better take care of our earth. I guess I found it so interesting because she didn’t have to change that much of the original story to make it work for this modern message.  I think my kids just thought it was a good story, liked the pictures, and could see the parallels to the original story. In the future the earth is very over-crowded and dirty.  Noah and his family (who even retain the Biblical names Ham, Shem, and Japhet) run the only park left, which is a green sanctuary for the earth’s last birds, animals, trees, and flowers.  As Earth heats up and the air worsens the plants struggle to grow and one day Noah finds a bird that is dying.  He takes this as a sign that they must build a spaceship and find a new place to live.  The cross view of the space ark is marvelous, showing how they all fit in.  Two by two they board the space-ark and flee the new truly horrifying looking dark planet. 40 days and 40 nights pass before they find  a new place, which looks like a beautiful Eden.  They vow to care for this new planet.  I happen to like Clark’s illustration style and found this a very heart-warming story.

 

Be Nice to Your Nose!

Be nice to your nose, or you might lose it!  The Day my Runny Nose Ran Away by Jason Eaton, illustrated by Ethan Long is a delightfully silly story. After treating his nose shabbily one too many times (scratchy tissues, wiped on a sleeve) Jason wakes up to find his nose has run away.  The nose, Montague, left a note explaining everything to the shocked child. Jason finds out that life without a nose is pretty rotten (teased by other kids, a sneeze is a disaster), so he decides to search for the runaway nose.  He hitches a ride on a flying ship to Nose Island where finds hundreds of noses..  Unfortunately, it’s not so easy to get his nose back and it turns out the noses have grand world domination plans.  Part pirate story, part silly body part story, this is a very fun read aloud. And perhaps we can all learn to treat our poor overburdened noses a little more nicely. No scratchy tissues!

 

A Snake is Totally Tail by Judi Barrett, illustrated by L.S. Johnson falls squarely into the “oldie but a goodie” category.  Beginning with the simple statement that a snake is “totally tail”, each page of the book describes another animal in the same fashion–a descriptor that aptly goes along with the animals most prominent feature.  “An elephant is essentially ears.”  “A kangaroo is partially pocket.”  I was absolutely delighted that the phrasing was not only alliterative, but also accurate and made me say “yeah! a crocodile is mostly mouth! a toucan is basically beak!”  And in a word nerd, I-love-Tom-Swiftys-and-other-word-games way, I thought it would be fun to make up your own.   I expected my younger child to ask questions about the words since the quantity descriptors are fairly unusual (slews, scores, fundamentally), but she didn’t and both kids liked this very much. 

 

The Book That Eats People by John Perry, illustrated by Mark Fearing, is one of those books where the book in your hands is the object of the story. The design of the book is great from cover to cover.  Yellow caution style tape tells the title, the author and title look like fangs, all warning you that this is a dangerous book.  apparently the book you are reading once ate someone and developed a taste for humans. The book’s glowering eyes are wonderfully menacing and this was a great book to read aloud as the reader can then spook the listeners by snapping the book at them and other scary things.  We had a great time reading this.