Picture Books

Picture Books (22)

Arnold, H. (1997).

Postcards from Italy. Austin, TX: Raintree Steck-Vaughn Publishers

This book is about 32 pages. Each double page is a postcard. The illustration is on one page and the message, written ostensibly by one child and addressed to another child, is on the opposite page, so we are looking at both at once. Each postcard has an informative postscript with information about the area from Mom or Dad. Illustrations include a map, a flag, and pictures of major cities. (About 3^rd grade reading level)

Beck

Peter and the Wolf *#*#

Atheneum Books (Simon & Shuster) 1995

Good real aloud picture book for K-6

Peter and the Wolf was originally composed by Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953). He created it to introduce children to orchestra instruments. Each character in the story is represented by a specific instrument: bird= flute, duck=oboe, cat=clarinet, Grandfather=bassoon, Wolf= French Horn,

The hunter’s guns = drums, Peter = the strings. In this particular retelling by Beck the animals do not have names and Peter and the little bird capture the really scary looking Wolf just as the hunters arrive. Then they all march the wolf off to a Zoo!!! Prokofiev was Russian and Beck’s illustrations show Peter dressed in my idea of Russian Cossack dress. The house is in an old traditional Swiss style of architecture with decorative cutouts in the wood trim. The illustrations are compelling and the Wolf is very scary! But I would present this first musically. I think it is much more dramatic musically. Also I prefer the animal to have names as they did in my favorite book presentation of this story. But the illustrations which clearly set the story in Russia make a major contribution.

Boast, C. (1998)

Italy. Des Plaines, IL: Heinemann Interactive Library.

This book is an introduction to the history, geography, economy and modern daily life in Italy. It includes many photos on each of the above topics. It also has a glossary. It is written mostly in the form of short paragraphs about each photo so each written piece is short. There are several maps of Italy. (Easy nonfiction)

Bridwell, Norman

Clfford the Big Red Dog

Burton, Virginia Lee/ author and illustrator

The Little House *#*#* Read Aloud to preschool

Houghton Mifflin Co. Boston 1942

This is one of the few stories I actually remember from my early childhood. We must have taken this book home from the library dozens of times. I love the pictures; the house looks like it is smiling in the first picture. And I love the house’s setting. One can watch the seasons come and go and people are enjoying the house and yard. The seasons are beautifully depicted. I like the way the words are arranged on the page too. Time passes and the city begins creeping out toward the house. It loses most of its land and is dwarfed by tall buildings and elevated trains. I am so glad when a couple comes along and buys the house because it reminds the woman of the house her grandmother lived in and they move it out of town to a location just like the place it was originally built. And they move in and start a family.

Collodi, C.L. (1993).

Pinocchio. NewYork, NY: Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Books.

This book is adapted and illustrated by Lorenzo Mattotti. It is a picture book of the original story and is only about forty pages long.

Duvall, Deborah L. (born in Tahlequa, Oklahoma, the capital of Cherokee Nation)

How Rabbit Lost His Tale: A traditional Cherokee Legend. A grandmother story

llustrated by Murv Jacobs (Cherokee descendant, raising family w/Duvall in Tahlequa)

This is an old folk tale about a rabbit playing a tricky rabbit trick that backfired on him. Very traditional and good illustrations.

Day, Alexandra

Carl’s Afternoon in the Park *#*#* Read Aloud K- 2

Farrar- Straus – Giroux, New York, 1991

This is a big picture book. It has words only on the first page between the adults. The rest of the book is fabulous paintings that tell the story without any words. Carl is a large dog. He is babysitting both a baby and a puppy. The story takes place in a big park. Mother goes off for tea in the park with another woman. Baby climbs on Carl’s back Baby sees a Carousel in the distance and wants to go to it so Carl takes her. He poses next to it pretending to be a Carousel Animal and the baby looks as if she is riding a Carousel dog as she holds onto the puppy. They have many adventures (helium balloons, petting zoo, being painted) and return to the original spot just in time to be collected by Mother who hopes they didn’t get too bored!

D'amico, Carmela & Steven authors and illustrators

Ella the Elegant Elephant

"Somewhere in the great, wide Indian Ocean lie the Elephants Islands, hidden by a fog so thick that no human being has ever found them," says the first page of the D'amico's book. Ella and her mother have just moved into a new neighborhood where they are living in the apartment above Ella's mom's new bakery. Ella is soon going to start school in this new neighborhood and is worried about that. She feels better when she comes across the special hat the her grandmother handed down to her. But in that hat she really sticks out in her new school. This may be another problem for her.

I just love this book, especially the illustrations of the little towns on the Elephant Islands. Carmela D'amico is a freelance writer whose work has been published in magazines and newspapers in Seattle, WA. Steven attended Cornish College of the Arts before quitting to do window displays for Tower Record. He moonlighted as a designer for Pear Jam and Warner Brothers and finally became a desgner and illustrator for the Seattle-based Smashing Ideas. This is sthe first book the D'amico's have published.

de Beer, Hans author and illustrator

Llevame a Casa, Osito Polar!

Traducido por Gerardo Gambolini

Edicionese Norte-Sur New York, NY 2001 www.northsouth.com

Lars is a little polar bear, un osito polar. He is sitting in the ice and snow by the sea feeling very bored. Then he goes scavenging in a trash heap and finds some things to eat. He carries his luch to a wooden step that he can use as a table. The step leads into a cargo container train car. Lars sits down to eat, but when he is not looking one of his chicken legs disappears. Lars climbs up the stairs and looks inside and finds a small tiger. The small tiger had climbed onto the train a different day when it was somewhere else and now he can not figure out how to get back home. His name is Sasha and he is very hungry. He came on the train because he wanted to see the sea because his father had once told him that "there is nothing more beautiful in the world." Lars is a little surprised. Anyway, Lars tells Sasha not to worry because he explores a lot and gets lost and someone always helps him to get home again and now he will help Sasha to get home. And he does, despite the fact that he doesn't actually know where they are much of the time.

These are two of the cutest little wild animals you have ever seen. All the pictures are terrific. It is in very easy Spanish. Anyway, if we take a leaf from Frances' storytelling we can just tell the story and then let the kids tell it to themselves with the pictures. AND there are five more books about el osito polar!

Ferguson, Sarah - The Duchess of York

Little Red

Illustrated by Sam Williams

Books for Young Readers, Simon & Schuster, New York 2003

www.SimonSaysKids.com

Illustrations rendered in soft pencil and watercolor on Arches paper

Sarah Ferguson has created an entire little neighborhood with Little Red, Little Blue, Roany the Pony and a few others. Off they go for a picnic in the traditional British vacation wagon which looks like the American idea of a gypsy wagon. (Actually if you go to England you can rent these by the day, week or month.) They have an adventure on their picnic which requires Little Red to be brave, but which makes them all some new friends. It is all very amiable and sweet.

They author lives in London with her daughters the princesses Beatrice and Eugenie. The illustrator lives in Hertfordshire, England.

Fischetto,L. (1994).

Harlequin and the Green Dress. New York, NY: Doubleday.

A harlequin is “a comic dramatic character featured in the Italian commedia dell’arte and the English harlequinade, usually shown wearing multicolored diamond-patterned tights and a black mask” (Encarta Dictionary). This is a picture book about a commedia dell’arte troupe (an Italian form of popular comedy of the 16^th and 17^th centuries. This troupe is traveling from town to town putting on comedy skits that are mostly improvisation. Several of the character are stock (appear in every skit) and wear specific masks and costumes to identify them. Each of the masked characters comes from a specific region of Italy. This tale is a sort of slapstick comedy of errors. (picture book)

Freschet, Gina

La procesion de Naty

Traduccion de Rita Guibert

It is the day of Guelaguetza, a cultural fiesta for the music and dance (bailes folkloricos) of the seven regions of Oaxaca in southern Mexico. It has gone on since before the arrival of the Spanish, but today it is also a big international tourist attraction. Naty is looking forward to singing and dancing in the parade in her new boots. She is costumed as un raton and she has practiced all year to dance faster than anyone. (In the illustrations you can see the little girl within the large raton costume, which is very helpful since the story is in Spanish.) She is dancing like crazy and the procession passes on. Suddenly she notices that they are gone. She tries to follow the sound of the music but she is lost for a long time. It is scary! Eventually she finds the parade again and stays with it and they all return to the plaza where her father finds her. When he asks her is she is having fun. She says, "Oh Yes! Can we do this again.?" And her father says, "Of course. Every year." He takes her to choose something to ear from one of the many vendors and then carries the sleeping child home.

The illustrations are so bright and so full of action. There is so much to see in every picture that it would be great for children to just look at and create their own words.

George, Lindsay Barrett author and illustrator

Inside Mouse, Outside Mouse

Greenwillow Books – HarperCollinsPub 2004

George’s illustrations are so life like, just like looking at real live mice. They are gorgeous and not cutesy caricatures. The pictures are very large. A nameless brown mouse who lives outdoors and another nameless but grey mouse who lives indoors, each take a trip that illustrates the concepts: up, down, across, around, through, between, behind, over, and under. This makes a great graphic presentation of prepositions. This book would make a good real aloud for K-3^rd, but also a good read as a preface to a grammar lesson at the fourth and fifth grades. I could have kids so their own such story or make a class book in which each student illustrates a single page, single

preposition.

Gibbon, Gail

Horses

Holiday House, NY 2003

Non-fiction with acaptioned iluustrations. Very informative – history and science of horses. Good for anyone who is really into horses or to look at classifying and comparing things. Good drawings of many breeds.

Note: Gail Gibbons has a whole list on similar non-fiction titles

Lewin, Ted

How Much? Visiting markets Around the World *#*#* third grade?

HarperCollins 2006

This book is written and illustrated by Ted Lewin, who is a Caldecott Honor artist. The pictures are fabulous. Each illustration takes up the entire page and the words are written on it. There is so much in each picture – so much going on and so much detail. One can really see what the various markets are like. There is the floating market of Damnoen Saduak near Bangkok, Thailand and Devraja Market in Mysore, India. There is the market at Agua Clientas in Peru and the Aloup Camel Market outside Cairo, Egypt and an Ethiopian neighborhood market in Brooklyn, New York. They are entrancing and I wish I could go travel and visit them right now!

One could read this aloud to even preschoolers but it would be wonderful for children to read to themselves and spend lots of time on the pictures and imagining. Also it could be used to introduce or as part of a unit of places, culture, or money.

www.tedlewin.com

www.authortracker.com

Lobel, Arnold *#*#

Days with Frog and Toad (An I Can Read Book)

HarperCollinsPub 1979

Several separately titled stories about Frog and Toad. Frog is an optimistic and energetic character. Toad is NOT and need Frog’s encouragement. One story is about housekeeping; just thinking about it depresses Toad. Another story is about flying a kite. In the third story, Frog tells Toad a ghost story. I like that Frog says, “Maybe yes and maybe no,” when Toad asks if it is a true story. There is also a birthday story and an alone story which demonstrates that being alone can be entirely positive. Most of all I like that Frog and Toad are such good friends. Also like Lobel’s illustrations.

Lowell, Susan

The Three Little Javelinas good read aloud for K-4

Illustrated by Jim Harris

Scholastic Inc., New York 1992

This is “a chile-flavored ‘Three Little Pigs’, set in the Sonoran Desert where Native American, Mexican, and Anglo cultures blend together”. A javelina (ha ve LEE na) is a collared peccary, a relative of swine but not actually a pig. However, it is the same recognizable story. The first javelina built a house of tumbleweeds. Along came a coyote who wanted to eat him and huffed and puffed and blew his house in, but the javelina escaped and ran to his brother’s house who had built his home of saguaro(sa-WA-ro) rib sticks that he was given by a Native Woman. They were puffed out of that house and ran to their sister’s. She had built her home of adobe bricks mad of mud and straw that had been given to her by a Spanish speaking brickmaker.

I like this book a lot especially the illustrations. They are large, the javelina’s are cute and dressed in cowboy clothes. The landscape is all definitely southwest with tumbleweeds and cacti, mountains and our very southwestern sunsets. I think it is really good for the kids to see the familiar story in a new setting. This could surely be used as a writing prompt for a pattern story, or for a dramatization.

Numeroff, Laura Joffe

If You Give a Moose a Muffin grade 1.9 per AR

Illustrated by Felicia Bond

HarperCollinsPub

It is really the illustrations that make this book (and If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, and If You Give a Pig a Pancake) although the ideas that occur to Numeroff as to what a moose (pig or mouse) will want are really hilarious too. I don’t know if the child in this one is a boy or a girl, which I think is a good thing. The Pig and pancake book is my favorite and while they are predictable after the first I enjoy rereading them many times. I read them with my 24 year old daughter now, but I would say they would be great for a read aloud from three up by which time the child knows this is funny. As a read to oneself I would say second and third grades.

Potter, Beatrix

The Tale of Peter Rabbit

This is my favorite Beatrix Potter story and I have it almost memorized. I remember when Alex was just born and Sandra, Bernard and their three kids came to make a formal visit and they gave us a stuffed Peter Rabbit and the book. I can still see my older sister holding baby Alex and hear her saying how lovely it is to hold babies this age.

Before Breatrix created these lovely books and fought to have them precisely the size she wanted, she had spent years raising animals, drawing them, drawing landscapes and finally drawing for a natural science articles. Peter was a real rabbit and so were the other rabbits in that particular story. Potter really knew how they looked and acted. She originally wrote part of this story with illustrations to a young friend who was six years old. Today one can go and visit her home in the Lake District of England; I hope to go one day.

Peter and his sisters went out for the day. Peter went into Mr. McGregor’s garden after his mother specifically told him not to. Once there he ate and ate, then was chased, lost his shoes, got caught in the gooseberry net and got away only by wriggling out of his jacket. He his in a watering can and finally escaped and ran home. His mother was not happy with him and put him to bed with chamomile tea while his sisters had bread and milk and blackberries for supper.

Rubin, Susan Goldman

Degas and the Dance: The Painter and the Petit Rats, Perfecting Their Art

Pub: Narry N. Abrams, Inc. New York

This book is a study of how Degas worked. It is also a study of how the dancers worked. Degas captures the art of the dancers. He always makes me want to be one of them. It is a beautiful book and an example of how one artist does it. This could be useful at fourth or fifth grade with either dance or art enthusiasts or anyone who just really wants to understand a passion and its expression from the inside.

Strevens, B.

Toto in Italy: A first taste of Italy and the Italian language.

Chicago, IL

Toto is a little boy about five or six years-old, visiting Rome with his parents. While his parents are sitting and sipping coffee, or walking and looking at the sights, Toto is making his own discoveries and having adventures that his parents don’t even notice. A few words and expressions in Italian are introduced and a picture dictionary of several more in contained on the end papers. It is about 25 pages long and I think the illustrations are water colors. .

Woodson, Jacqueline

Show Way *#*#*!!

Illustrated by Hudson Talbott

G. P. Putnam’s Sons New York, NY 2005

Picture Book

This is a gorgeous picture book. I love the layout. The whole of each page is a picture and the words are somewhere on that page. The story is the story of one family down through the generations. The family is black and was once slaves. A great-grandma told all the children she cared for how to use the stars to get to the safe, free north and taught her daughter to sew and they made quilts that told the way. This was passed down and another child grew up and made quilts that showed the way and provided them to slaves going north. The way and the sewing skill keeps getting passed down until the trail to the north is no longer needed but the the beautiful quilts that mother and daughter make and sell supports the family quite well. Some of the pages in the book are like quilt pieces pieced together. The story goes on right up to today when this author is the mama telling the story of the quilts to her baby girl and writing it down for all of us. She says that “all the stuff that happened before you were born is your own kind of Show Way.” So we each of us have a story and we can all relate to the idea of a personal family history told through a quilt.

I want to use this book for an in class project. We can make quilts perhaps out of paper, perhaps of fabric to tell a story or to trace our families’ history.

This is a picture book, great for read aloud. It has fabulous pictures and large enough to see in a read to a group situation. Appropriate even to eighth grade as a kind of history