Tag: bears

100 Picture Books: 75-71

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This was the first bunch of picture books I got after Sweetpea was born and quasi-interested in books. There was a large gap between the previous bunch because of sick kids yadda yadda. Since this bunch, she has become much more interested, and so it will be neat to see which books each kid gravitates toward, since there is a good mixture on the list of “baby” type books, and books that are more suited to an older child’s attention span.
Cloudy_with_a_Chance_of_Meatballs_(book)75. Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett
This was Peanut’s favorite in the batch. I wasn’t as big of a fan. It’s a story within a story, where the grandpa tells the story of Chewandswallow, a town that has food for weather, and the weather begins to get worse and worse, so everyone leaves. I felt like the ending was too abrupt and unsatisfying, but the images of giant food entertained Peanut enough to ask for repeated readings. She especially liked the giant pancake squashing the school.
Most people know already that this book was developed into two fairly successful films that don’t follow the story at all. There were also two book sequels, released in 2000 and 2013. The author and illustrator were married at one time, but have been divorced for quite awhile, and continued to work together on these books.

I want my hat back cover74. I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen

I actually had to just look this book up with my tried and true YouTube method of unattainable books. We had this on loan from the library for awhile, but it was Mr. Meags that read the book to Peanut, and for some reason, she refused to let me read it to her. She wanted to skip to the last page, and that was the only part of the story she was willing to admit existed. There’s an entertaining stop-motion animation if you are so inclined.

Basically, a bear is walking along and asking several animals he comes across if anyone has seen his hat. Later on, he realizes that one of the animals, a rabbit, HAS seen his hat, and lied about it. So basically, he goes and eats the rabbit. Then a squirrel asks if he has seen a rabbit wearing a hat, and he says “No, don’t ask me any more questions!” Apparently, the bear eating the rabbit was a bit much for Peanut.

This book is the first I’ve noticed that has a New York Times book review. So it must be special. It even spawned a meme.

38-273. May I Bring a Friend? by Beatrice Schenk de Regniers

This was a favorite. It has a simple rhyme that is kind of melodic to read, which lots of repetition. Peanut requested it a lot. Each time the King and Queen invite the narrator for tea, or lunch, or whatever, he asks to bring a friend, and it is always a different animal. Peanut liked to point out the animals and name them when prompted. At the end, the narrator invites the King and Queen to the zoo to meet his “friends.” It’s very charming.

The author of this book also worked with Maurice Sendak, and wrote a few books under a psuedonym. Writing was a second career for her, as she was a social worker for the US and in a Yugoslav camp.

But-Not-the-Hippopotamus

 

72. But Not The Hippopotamus by Sandra Boynton

This is one of my favorite Sandra Boynton books. We have many of her board books, as they are great for small children. Peanut is almost 4 and was not as enthralled with this book as younger kids might be, but it was still good. Peanut’s little sister, here to be known as Sweetpea, was marginally interested, but as she hasn’t quite hit one year yet, so all in good time.

The story is about animals doing fun things, but the hippopotamus is continually left out. Near the end, the animals all come and ask the hippo to join them, but now the armadillo is left out. It’s cute, and rhyming, and the illustrations are in that classic Boynton cutesy style. The book is an older one, published in 1982, but continues to be in print. Spoiler alert – we will be seeing more of Boynton.

Stellaluna0171. Stellaluna by Janell Cannon

I had seen this one frequently in libraries on display and when I worked at Barnes & Noble, but I had never flipped through it before. Peanut seemed to like it okay, although it didn’t really hit home for her until we saw some bats in a habitat at the zoo. It kind of clicked for her then. But the story is cute, about a baby fruit bat that gets separated from its mother and falls into a birds nest. Stellaluna tries to fit into the nest life with the other birds, but she finds it difficult. Eventually, she is reunited with her bat family, but remains friends with her bird “siblings.” The final few pages have some educational notes about bat species.

This book is apparently even more famous than I perceived. It has been made into a film, was featured on Reading Rainbow, and won a slew of awards. Not to mention, it has also been adapted into a puppet stage production. The author has written some other books, but none of them seemed familiar.

I hope you enjoyed this list and maybe found some new books you are interested in reading to the rugrats in your life. Next up, our first audio book and now I can never not have children’s stories playing while I drive the kids around…

100 Picture Books: 85-81

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This batch was slightly off for a few reasons. It seemed like the books I liked best were not Peanut-friendly. The ones I disliked, she gravitated toward. Goes to show, you can’t predict kids.

The first iteration of this post, on Zwolanerd.com, was missing The Giving Tree because I somehow skipped it.

Imagen escaneada85. The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein

This is the first book on the list that we already had an have read a bunch of times. If you haven’t read this one (and I only read it for the first time after we bought it for Peanut), a boy spends a lot of time sitting under, playing around, and eating the apples of a tree, presumably in his backyard but we aren’t ever told. Over time, the boy grows up and has less need of the tree, except for the primary resources that he can extract from it (apples to sell, wood to build with, etc), and the tree freely gives everything she has but misses the company of the boy. In the end, the boy is an old man, and too old to do much of anything but sit. So the tree offers her stump – all that’s left – and the boy stays with the tree, presumably dying right there. And since the boy is with the tree, the tree is happy.

If you think about this too much, it is really messed up, but I get that it’s a somewhat sweet story of love and friendship, and even forgiveness. Critics/readers are pretty divided on the whole thing, and there’s a collection of essays on the book that go between positive and negative interpretations. Personally, I take the book as a parent-child relationship, and see it as how children take and take and parents give and give, and there are no hard feelings from the parents, despite how they could be seen as being “used”. I feel like as a parent, you give of yourself, and your children take those “pieces” of you, like apples or branches, and create something with them. I hope that in the end, they reflect on those sacrifices and appreciate it.

Oh, and I should mention that Peanut really likes this book a lot, in case the fact that we’ve read it a bunch of times didn’t make that clear.

not-a-box85. Not a Box by Antoinette Portis

This is a short one, where a Rabbit has a cardboard box and imagines all the different pretend things the box can be. The box and Rabbit are in black and the imaginary things are in red. This is another one where the reader needs to make inferences, and I felt like I had to explain it. She didn’t really ask for it to be read too many times.

The book was inspired by the author’s own childhood play and use of cardboard boxes, with one specific memory of sitting in a box with her sister being the catalyst. She also chose a bunny because it would be easy to keep the character gender neutral.

bear_snores_on84. Bear Snores On by Karma Wilson

This book was cute and easy to read because it is written in rhyming stanzas. A bear is sleeping in a cave and all the neighboring animals come and have a party in his cave while he sleeps. Peanut didn’t really seem to enjoy this one although it seemed to be one she should like. We have a different book about the same bear that she enjoyed.

This author is pretty prolific and we have read many of her books before, so I was surprised to read that Bear Snores On was her very first! Maybe that’s the problem, it suffers from New Writer Syndrome.

VisitorForBear83. A Visitor For Bear by Bonny Becker

This one was definitely a favorite. A bear (a different bear) is making his breakfast and a mouse keeps somehow sneaking in. The bear insists on no visitors but eventually the mouse wears him down. He realizes that he does like visitors after all. It was pretty cute and Peanut requested it several times.

I was delighted to discover this book is the first in a series. This was the author’s first book (a lot of first books on this list so far!), and came up because the mouse just “popped into” her head, much like the mouse does in the story.

fortunately82. Fortunately by Remy Charlip

Not sure what I was expecting from this book, but this wasn’t it. It’s a pretty short story, with alternating phrases. Fortunately, such and such happened, but unfortunately, this happened. Then fortunately… And repeat until the end. It got a little annoying to read. But Peanut asked for it a couple of times and seemed to enjoy it, although her favorite page was the tunnel with tigers stuck in it, mostly because she liked tracing the shape of the tunnel with her fingers.

This book was acquired and republished by Simon and Schuster in 1969 replacing the “fortunately” with “what good luck,” and “unfortunately” with “what bad luck.” It reverted back not long after, but acquiring the modified book can be a rare find and worth some cash.

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Books 80-76 are on their way, including the first purchase I’ve had to make to complete this project!