We are deep into tennis lessons, baseball games, year-end orchestra concerts, and even junior prom, which my high school-teacher husband chaperoned last night! May is a wild ride, but, as always, it has included so many great books. I’m happy to share a few with you.
Picture Books
I enjoyed They All Saw a Cat, but Wenzel’s latest — Two Together — is exceptional. There are three different illustration styles used, depicting human, dog, and cat perspectives, and it was just an amazing joy to study how everything was stitched together. I can’t wait to share this one with students, and for us to get to chat about the artwork together!
Along the same lines, Jump for Joy is another new book that beautifully combines very different styles of artwork to help tell the story of a dog seeking a kid and a kid seeking a dog. The first time I read this with my kids, we liked it. But the second and third times (and beyond)? Loved. So much to notice with each new viewing. Thinking ahead, Jump for Joy and Two Together would make a great pairing for Mock Caldecott lessons!
One oldie but goodie! Melissa Sweet’s Carmine is a Little Red Riding Hood retelling, but it’s also a celebration of interesting words, an unusual alphabet book, and it includes lots of subtle references to other nursery rhymes and fairy tales, and even has a recipe for alphabet soup at the end. Chef Boyardee alphabet pasta was a staple of my childhood diet, but my own kids have never had ABC pasta before — we’ll have remedy that!
Early Readers and Early Chapter Books
Q is for Duck is small in size — a true early reader with a big font, lots of white space, and easy to read text. However, it is also absolutely *magical* to read aloud to a group of first graders who are so eager and excited to guess each mixed-up letter match. I usually take a few guesses (unless we get the correct one right away!) and then flip the page to reveal.
Charlie and Mouse is an early reader series about two brothers, with six books total. Each one features four short stories that are often linked. They are quirky and fun, and child readers are in on all the jokes. Stuff like: convincing their tired mom that they need a bedtime banana. “Is that a thing?!” asks Mom. “It’s a thing!” promise Charlie and Mouse. I read the first book to my kindergarteners last week, and one kid summed it up well: “These stories are pretty weird…and I love them.”
After a stretch of loooong family read alouds, we needed something short and sweet for these busy weeks at the end of the school year. Bunny and Clyde, the latest from Megan McDonald of Judy Moody fame, fits the bill. Bunny and Clyde are tired of being good. They’re ready to give being bad a try! Only they are not very good at being bad, despite best efforts. This is an easy read-aloud for the younger set, since it has lots of pictures mixed in, but it’s also a great pick for independent readers making the jump to chapter books.
Nonfiction Read Alouds
To end the year in library, my fifth graders do a food truck project inspired by an old Read Aloud Librarian idea. They research a few food trucks, then come up with an idea for their own, planning the location, menu, and creating a marketing piece to attract customers. To kick off the project, we read Chef Roy Choi and the Street Food Remix, a really lively biography of this pioneer in the LA food truck scene. We also read Pizza by Greg Pizzoli and Nacho’s Nachos by Sandra Nickel. Such a fun way to close the year!
I read Stinkbird has a Superpower to my own kids, and we loved learning about these quirky birds (Swimming! Claws! Burps!). Our favorite part, though, was the True or False at the end, and my mind immediately went to library lessons, ha! I would have students identify an animal to research their “superpowers,” then come up with their own mini true or false quiz. I will definitely be ordering this and Esbaum’s new book, Parrotfish has a Superpower.
Middle Grade
In Continental Drifter, a debut graphic memoir from Kathy MacLeod, young Kathy is growing up in Thailand with a Thai mother, a much older American father, and a moody teenage sister. Every few years, they travel to Maine to spend the summer with her dad’s family. Her excitement for the trip is so high, but her loneliness and feelings of being an outsider don’t go away when she attend sleep-away camp for the first time. The author and I were born in the same year, and it was really fun to see her references to restaurants / TV shows / and fashion. A great book to tuck into a middle schooler’s summer camp trunk, along with Be Prepared and A First Time for Everything :)
I read Once Upon a Tim to my kids, and now my fourth grader has plowed through the rest of the series on her own. Lots of humor, funny illustrations, a zippy storyline — these work well as read alouds, too, for younger kiddos. They are always checked out from my school library.
Bits & Bobs
Grown-up books — I really enjoyed Trespasses, and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, which I hadn’t read before we picked it for book club last month. In the tough-but-excellent category, I am listening to The Anxious Generation. If you have kids, or work with kids, I can’t recommend it highly enough. I also zipped through John Schu’s haunting YA book Louder than Hunger.
We are nearly finished with Deadloch, an Australian murder mystery with a quirky Schitt’s Creek-like cast of characters. Fingers crossed for a second season.
Picked up these easy sneaker/sandals for my kids and so far, so good.
Peter and I were lucky to see Waxahatchee last month, and I keep thinking about this headline declaring it to be her anti-Eras tour (in a good way!). It was such a great show, and she’ll be back in the US at the end of summer if you can snag tickets!
I know some of you are very close to the start of summer, and others go well into June. Wherever you are, I hope you can enjoy this beautiful time of year. See you next month with some summer reading ideas!