#11

Little Dog and Duncan
Poems by Kristine O’Connell George
Illustrations by June Otani
Clarion Books
2002
40 pages

Poetry

“Little Dog and Duncan saw me coming with the brush…
The juniper bush has grown a tail.”

I chose this book because I enjoy reading poetry, especially about animals or nature. My RITE child also likes reading about dogs. This book is full of poems about Little Dog and Duncan. The poems are in the order of occurrence during the day. The first poem is about the big news that Little Dog gets; he is having a visitor. He greets his visitor, Duncan, and brings his bags inside. Duncan gets homesick, but Little Dog sits by the door with him and helps him mope. The girl gives Duncan a hug, a pat, and a cookie. Little Dog gets the same. The two dogs play together throughout the afternoon, and Duncan goes home at the end of the day.

This wrap-around cover has Little Dog and Duncan lying in the grass, and Duncan’s huge body continues to the back of the book. The illustrations in this book are vignettes. June Otani did a fantastic job using watercolor paints to illustrate the two dogs. The paintings have very distinct lines, showing the detail of the dogs’ hair and the texture of the grass. Some of the illustrations seem to get lost in the gutter of the book.

This book would be appropriate for young children to read. It would be a great book to use to introduce poetry. You could tell students that poetry doesn’t always have to rhyme and let them read poems aloud from the book. The poetry in this book is free verse, so students could write their own similar poem about a topic of their choice. If the whole class had a similar topic to write about, the teacher could collect all of the poems and make them into a book to keep in the classroom.

            Little Dog and Duncan has not been awarded any medals or honors. I enjoyed reading the poems in this book, and I’m sure any other dog lover would as well.

#12

Weave Little Stars into My Sleep
Selected by Neil Philip
Photographs by Edward S Curtis
Clarion Books
2001
22 pages

Poetry

“This little girl
Was born to gather roses,
Wild roses.”

            This beautiful book of Native American lullabies caught my attention because not only is it a book of poetry, but it is also multicultural. The lullabies in this book reflect the concerns of mothers all over the world. Mothers rock their babies to sleep and tell them not to cry. The lullabies have been translated into English rhymes. These lullabies are originally from the Northeast (Ojibwa), the Plains (Arapaho, Kiowa, Pawnee, Crow), the Southwest (Hopi, Acoma, Yuma), the Northwest (Kwakiutl, Haida, Tsimshian), and the Arctic Indians (Inuit).

            This book has a single image cover of an Indian mother holding her baby in her arms. The endpapers and flyleaf consist of a beautiful photograph of a canoe floating in the water. Most pages have a full-page photograph, but some are smaller, so there is blank space around it. This book has the most formal text placement, where the text is opposite from the illustration. The photographs in this book are printed in sepia instead of color or black and white.

            Weave Little Stars into My Sleep is not a very well known book. My grandmother shared this book with me because it is one that she enjoyed. In the classroom, I would use this book when talking about Indians from different locations. I would probably put this book in a reading center when I taught a lesson on poetry. It is a good example of free verse poetry, along with lullabies. I could also use this book for the beautiful photographs inside when talking about Indians. Students could look at their clothing and homes to compare the different kinds of Indians. This book has not been recognized for any honors or medals. I would recommend this book of sweet lullabies to anyone with small children.

#13

The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars
Poems collected, written, and illustrated by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace
Houghton Mifflin Company
2003
36 pages

Poetry

“Under the dark is a star,
Under the star is a tree,
Under the tree is a blanket,
And under the blanket is me.”

          This book caught my eye because of the cut paper illustrations on each page. This is a collection of poems about the sun, the moon, and the stars. My favorite poem is “Day-Time Moon” by Dorothy Aldis. This poem talks about seeing the moon during the day when the sun is out. It says that the moon has no stars in its company during the day time.

            Each poem is illustrated with cut papers of different colors and textures. I like how Wallace uses the cut paper to illustrate her pictures, because the pictures really pop from the page. Each color is so different from the color beside it. She uses a lot of primary colors in her illustrations since this is a book to read with young children. The page spreads differ from double to single to half page spreads. This book has an informal text placement on each page. The poems about the sun have a light blue background, like the sky during the daytime. In contrast, the poems about the moon and stars have a dark blue background representing the night sky.

            I would recommend this book to young children. In the classroom, I would use this book to talk about the sun, moon, and stars. I would use my favorite poem, “Day-Time Moon” to talk about why the moon is still visible during the day. Another activity would be to have students write their own poem about the sun, the moon, or the stars. The teacher would collect the poems and make a classroom book to display the writings in.

This book has not been recognized for any awards or honors.

#14

Revenge of the Lunch Ladies
Poems by Kenn Nesbitt
Illustrations by Mike & Carl Gordon
Meadowbrook Press
2007
73 pages

Poetry

“I think you’ll find it easier to do the work instead.”

            As soon as we talked about this book of poems in class, I had to go buy it for my future classroom. From the revenge of the lunch ladies for complaining about the cafeteria food to science homework eating a dog, this book is sure to have you laughing. My favorite poem in the book is “Let Me Out of the Classroom,” which is sung to the tune of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” There are always a few students who are anxious to get out of the classroom. They always ask how much longer they have until they get to go to lunch or recess. This poem begins with a student trying to get out of class, but then when he finds out that his mother is there to pick him up for his yearly dentist appointment, he begs to stay.

            The cover of this book is printed in color, but the pages of the book are black and white. This book has a single image cover, with a small illustration on the back. This book of poems has a table of contents so that you can look up a specific poem. With double spread illustrations, the pictures lead from one page to the next. This book has informal text placement, making the text fit into the pictures.

This hilarious book of school poetry is great for school-aged children. As we discussed in class, this book would be perfect to have in a classroom library. Students could read the poems in their spare time, or the teacher could read the class a poem a day. After reading a poem, students could write a funny poem of their own about school. The teacher would have to set rules that no one could or would be offended by a poem that a student would write. The teacher could collect the poems that the class would write and make their own book with a similar silly title to keep in the classroom. Although this book has not been awarded any medals or honors, I would recommend it to anyone.

#15

The Three Pigs
By David Wiesner
Clarion Books
2002
38 pages

Traditional Literature

“Little pig, little pig, let me come in.”

            I chose this book for many reasons. I was interested in reading a book by David Wiesner after learning about him in class. I also have recently taught a lesson with the story of the Three Little Pigs, so I was interested in reading this retelling of the story.  This story starts off as an abbreviated story of the classic Three Little Pigs, but as the wolf starts to blow each house down, he blogs the pig right off of the page. The pigs are safe and the pages of the story fly away. The three pigs see another story, so they decide to walk into the picture and see what the story is about. The first story that they walk into is the nursery rhyme, “Hey Diddle Diddle.” When they leave the cat and the fiddle, they become part of a story about a dragon. Suddenly, they get an idea to bring the characters of the story with them, out of the pages. As they travel along the pages of different stories, they go back and find the wolf trying to blow their houses down. As the wolf huffed and puffed and tried to blow down the brick house, the dragon character sticks his head out of the front door and scares the wolf away! From that point on, they all lived happily ever after.

            David Wiesner uses watercolors, gouache, colored inks, pencils and colored pencils on Fabriano hot press paper to makes his illustrations come to life. On the dust jacket is a picture of the three pigs in this story. The endpapers have a grainy brown look, probably to relate to the pigs’ houses. This book has many different types of page layouts.  While some pictures are framed, others are spot art on a blank page. Towards the end of the book when the pigs come out of the story pages, Wiesner uses text bubbles to show us what the pigs are saying to each other.

            This book is appropriate for children in elementary school. They would easily be able to recognize the nursery rhyme of “Hey Diddle Diddle” and be able to relate to the original story of the Three Little Pigs. Wiesner is a three time winner of the Caldecott Medal and a two time recipient of the Caldecott Honor. In the classroom, I would use this book in a learning center for students to compare and contrast different retellings of the original Three Little Pigs. The student would have to draw a Venn diagram and show how each of the stories are alike and different from the original story. This would be a fun activity, but yet an educational one at the same time.

#16

The Bourbon Street Musicians
by Kathy Price
Illustrated by Andrew Glass
Clarion Books
2002
40 pages

Traditional Literature

“Sho’ nuff? As grass is green, sho’ nuff, y’all.”

            I chose this book because the front cover looked very interesting. I enjoy reading about different cultures, and this book is all about New Orleans. This story is a retelling of The Bremen Town Musicians. An old mule decides that he has become too old to continue to be a scarecrow for the farmer, so he hits the road and heads to New Orleans to play his trumpet. Along the way, he meets a hound dog who has also gotten too old to hunt for foxes and rabbits. The old dog decides to travel along with the mule and be-bop on the street corner in New Orleans. Next, the two friends meet a rooster and a cat that have both gotten too old to continue to do their jobs, so they join the group of musicians as they travel to Louisiana. The four friends get lost along their trail, and decide to stop at an old shack to ask for directions. As they peek inside the window, the mule sees six men eating supper. The animals decide that they are all hungry, so they start singing in hope of receiving some dinner. The men are frightened when hear the awful noise and they run away. The animals invite themselves inside the house and feast on what was left of the men’s dinner. One man tries to sneak back into the house, but the animals do not let that happen. The four animal musicians decided that they enjoyed life enough in the little old shack that they no longer wished to travel to Bourbon Street.

            Kathy Price uses oil crayon and turpenoid to execute her illustrations. The oil crayons almost give the pictures a blurry tone. She uses a lot of curvy lines to show the wrinkles and old age of the characters. Price uses a bold black line to outline the characters’ bodies. While some pages have a lot of blank space around the illustrations, other pages are full of color. The words in the story have a bluesy, Cajun dialect that goes along with the theme of New Orleans.

This book is appropriate for older children to read, because it may be hard for younger students to understand because of the Cajun dialect. In the classroom, I would use this book to introduce the topics of New Orleans and jazz. This would also be a fantastic book for a music teacher to read when she talks about be-bop and blues.

#17

Noah and the Devil
Retold by Neil Philip
Illustrated by Isabelle Brent
Clarion Books
2001
23 pages

Traditional Literature

“Oh, you devil, come in!"

            I chose this book because of my Christian faith. I was interested to see how the legend of Noah’s Ark would be told from another country’s perspective. This is a retelling of the legend of Noah’s Ark told from Romania. In the Romanian version of this story, pairing the animals two by two and getting them to climb aboard the ark is fairly simple. Noah’s stubborn wife, on the other hand, does not want to set foot on the ark. As Noah tries to convince her to come aboard, he gets aggravated at her and says “Oh, you devil, come in!” which invites the real devil inside the ark. The devil takes the form of a mouse, who chews a hole in the bottom plank of the ark to try to drown everyone on the ark. As Noah tries to catch the mouse, he throws a glove at it, and the glove turns into a cat. The cat catches the mouse, and Noah throws them both overboard. A snake tells Noah that he can cut off its tail to patch the hole in the plank in return for a human being to eat each day. Noah has no other choice but to agree to the deal. After sailing on the ark for one hundred and fifty days, Noah sets a dove free to search for dry land. The dove couldn’t find a dry place to land, so a week later Noah sets her free again. The white dove brings back a sprig of olive and Noah knows that the land is finally dry. Noah opened the ark and thanked God for saving his family. God told Noah to be fruitful and multiply, and to take care of the animals. Noah builds a fire to make a sacrifice to God for all that he has done. About that time, the snake slithered up to Noah. The snake asks Noah if he is going to keep his side of the deal, but Noah tells him that he cannot. Noah threw the snake into the fire and it burned to ash. Each speck of ash turned into a flea. The book says that Noah lived to be nine hundred and fifty, and was perfectly happy, except for one small thing. He and his family were plagued by fleabites. “In fulfillment of Noah’s promise to the snake, together all the fleas in the world suck just enough blood from people to make up one whole human being a day.”

Isabelle Brent illustrates this book in rich watercolor and gold leaf accents. Each double-page spread has a large, bold border along the top and bottom edges of the page. On each page that has text, there is spot art of what Noah saw out the window of the ark, and the opposite page has a full-page illustration relating to the text. The gold leaf accents add texture to the illustrations in the story. There is a lot of blue in each illustration, relating to all of the water of the flood.

This book is appropriate for a student of any age to read. Although being able to recognize faith in schools has been taken away, a teacher could use this book to compare and contrast the story from the Bible and this legend from Romania. Students would easily be able to identify similarities and differences between the two stories. A teacher could also use this cute story when talking about story retellings. This book is a perfect example of one from a different country.

Noah and the Devil is not a very well known book, and it has not been awarded any medals or honors. This book is a must read!