TIME FOR A HUG (PICTURE BOOK)

Book du Jour:
 
TIME FOR A HUG by Phyllis Gershator and Mim Green, illustrated by David Walker (Sterling)

Wash our faces,
comb our hair,
choose the clothes
we like to wear.
Eat from a bowl,
drink from a mug--
What time is it?
Time for a hug!  

Tick tock, hours on a clock click off tidily in verse, taking us through the joys of a preschooler's everyday life (as well as the first ten digits).  A tender addition to any baby shower book basket!

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THE HAUNTED HAMBURGER (PICTURE BOOK)

Book du Jour:

THE HAUNTED HAMBURGER AND OTHER GHOSTLY STORIES by David LaRochelle, illustrations by Paul Meisel (Dutton)

Seriously.  Do I need to tell you why you need to add a book called THE HAUNTED HAMBURGER to your children's collection?!  For practicing pedagogues, you'll find it will become one of your seasonal go-to's, featuring three vignettes: "The Scary Baby," "The Haunted Hamburger" and "The Big Bad Granny," all told as bedtime stories to frighten a little ghost. The stories conjure up way more laughs than shivers (especially when one poor ghost is fated to become a diaper!  Augghhhh!) and are well-complimented by colorful and cartoonish illustrations.  Most dependable primary pick for Halloween week as IN A DARK, DARK ROOM AND OTHER SCARY STORIES by Alvin Schwartz and illustrated by Dirk Zimmer (and that's saying a lot).

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LOVE TWELVE MILES LONG (PICTURE BOOK)

Book du Jour:

LOVE TWELVE MILES LONG by Glenda Armand, illustrated by Colin Bootman (Lee & Low)

Inspired by the life of the great orator and abolitionist Frederick Douglass, a mother separated from her son by slavery visits him, recounting every mile of the journey (first mile for forgetting, fourth mile for looking up, sixth mile for praying, seventh for singing), and giving her son the steps toward his own freedom.  A stirring and hopeful read-aloud, this is a must-have for Black history, history of the American Civil War, the Antebellum South and slavery, and also for great moments in Mom history. 

For story or study, pair with Anne Rockwell's ONLY PASSING THROUGH (R. Gregory Christie, illustrator), Tonya Cherie Hegamin's MOST LOVED IN ALL THE WORLD (illustrated by Cozbi Cabrera) and MAMA SAYS: A BOOK OF LOVE FOR MOTHERS AND SONS by Rob Walker, illustrated regally by Leo and Diane Dillon. (8 and up)

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WITCHES! (NONFICTION)

Book du Jour:

WITCHES! THE ABSOLUTELY TRUE TALE OF DISASTER IN SALEM by Rosalyn Schanzer (National Geographic)

Ask:  does your child know about the Salem Witch Trials?  How about you?!  Then you need this little chapbook, so chillingly adorned with black, white and red scratchboard illustrations and teeming with the primary sources and historical regret that the subject deserves.  You also need WITCH HUNT: MYSTERIES OF THE SALEM WITCH TRIALS by Marc Aronson, which does a good job of exploring the role of peer pressure in the trials, making it very relevant to tweenagers, and Milton Meltzer's WITCHES AND WITCH HUNTS: A HISTORY OF PERSECUTION, written by a master of non-fiction and putting witch-hunts and their head devils in a historical and modern context (including Hitler and McCarthy). Of course, my favorite nonfiction about witches is contained in WITCHES by Erica Jong, which is full of many dirty and beautiful and disturbing illustrations and writing. I don't think is for children, although I received it on request when I was thirteen, and it is worth noting that I still did enjoy it very much.

And if your older, fiction-loving familiar has somehow wearied of  Elizabeth George Speare's Newbery-winning Salem standby THE WITCH OF BLACKBIRD POND, try Celia Rees's WITCH CHILD for kids needing a more contemporary, and possibly independently accessible approach to the topic. (All for readers 11 and up, except for Erica Jong.)

Happy Banned Books Week.


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More Esmé stuff at www.planetesme.com.

CUPCAKE (PICTURE BOOK)

Book du Jour:
CUPCAKE by Charise Mericle Harper (Disney/Hyperion)

I promised you cake today.

I didn't want to like this book.  Was it just adding its dozen to the cupcake craze sweeping every other block?  Was it one of those overly-saccharine books that ultimately says "I'm okay, you're okay?"  No.  It was not.  Yes, It capitalizes on our national love of frosting.  Yes, it ultimately says, "I'm okay, you're okay," okay.   But it also has a double-page spread of different cupcake characters (fancy flower-top cupcake, stripy cupcake, polka-dot cupcake) that is absolutely irresistible; how can you not choose a favorite?  And for gosh sakes, don't we all need a candle, to help us find our inner light?  This story is perfectly adorable, encouraging, and screams for various follow-up projects, whether decorating paper cupcakes or pulling out the pastry bags for some real action.  Three yums up.  (5 and up) And also, for lots of layers and zero calories, add BETTY BUNNY LOVES CHOCOLATE CAKE to your collection, featuring an energetic floppy-eared character that finds her cocoa-covered true love and is enamored enough to stick it in her sock. The thin-lined, watercolor illustrations are expressive and funny, and overall, a is the icing on the cake for a very realistic depiction of a hard-headed little girl in bunny's clothing (not that you might know any yourself). A nice choice for the FANCY NANCY and OLIVIA jet-set of readers. And if you're just in it for the pastry, please don't forget Janet Stein's THIS LITTLE BUNNY CAN BAKE, which lets some boys in the kitchen door, too.  (5 and up)

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THE GINGERBREAD MAN LOOSE IN THE SCHOOL (PICTURE BOOK)

Book du Jour:

THE GINGERBREAD MAN LOOSE IN THE SCHOOL by Laura Murray, illustrated by Mike Lowery (Putnam)

I'm the Gingerbread Man,
And I'm trying to find
The children who made me,
but left me behind.

Looking for the children in this reverse chase, our Gingerbread friend gets a grand tour of the school, and manages to find his friends in the end.  Comic-book framing paired with fun, simple illustration and a limited but snazzy palette of browns, greens, turquoise and red makes for visually active pages that are still easy to follow when sharing with a classroom.   This cookie is genuinely sweet!  (5 and up) For other reads off the cookie sheet, taste-test THE GINGERBREAD GIRL by Lisa Campbell Ernst, or my favorite, Mini Grey's adventurous GINGER BEAR. And don't forget to share the original, newly reprinted with a handsome embossed cover, Paul Galdone's THE GINGERBREAD BOY, which, in combination with the other titles in Galdone's "Folk Tale Classics" series, has comprised my latest baby-gift-of-choice." The children never seem to trust that old fox, no matter how nice he tries to be...for a while, anyway. Oh, well.

And! While we're on the subject of the way the cookie crumbles, there's Jan Brett's busy GINGERBREAD FRIENDS, which is eye candy as much as it is eye cookie, and the Randall Jarrell's beautiful, old-fashioned first chapter-book read-aloud (yes, all you first grade teachers, this is for you!), THE GINGERBREAD RABBIT, illustrated by the great Garth Williams (of whose talents you are acquainted from CHARLOTTE'S WEB.

To be devoured with or without milk.
Cake tomorrow.

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THE GIRL WHO CIRCUMNAVIGATED FAIRYLAND (Fiction)

Book du Jour:

THE GIRL WHO CIRCUMNAVIGATED FAIRYLAND IN A SHIP OF HER OWN MAKING by Catherynne M. Valente (Fiewel and Friends)

Save Fairyland, little twelve-year-old-girl!  (No pressure.) With lots of wordplay, a quest to vanquish in the name of good and a whimsical cast, perhaps this is a contemporary nod to Norton Juster's  THE PHANTOM TOOLBOOTH featuring a female protagonist (and how timely, with a 50th Anniversary Edition and an Annotated Edition out and about?)...excepting, September has an enthusiastic spirit all her own, falling in line with the best of the Practical Princesses and other more liberated girls who have wandered--or wended--their way into fairy tales. Smart, lovely, sensory, descriptive language, too, with plenty of vocabulary that means what it says and says what they mean (bedraggled shoes, dense bread), always exciting and never dumb (just like good old William Steig used to do...how about BRAVE IRENE? ).   Isn't it perfect when an author has a high regard for, um....words?  And girls?  Helps a lot. (11 and up)

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TROUBLEMAKER (FICTION)

Book du Jour: 

TROUBLEMAKER by Andrew Clements (Scholastic)

What could be more exciting than a new title from the master of realistic school fiction?  A poignant story about how difficult it can be to turn over a new leaf once a reputation for mischief is imprinted upon the mind of teachers and classmates.  I have a feeling that Sahara would like this book. (9 and up)

Links are provided for informational use. Don't forget to support your local bookseller.
More Esmé stuff at www.planetesme.com.