The Reading Chair
Fruit, by Sara Anderson. 2007. Brooklyn, NY: Handprint. 32 pp. ISBN 9781593541880.
Ages birth to 5.
Vegetables, by Sara Anderson. 2007. Brooklyn, NY: Handprint. 32 pp. ISBN 9781593541897.
Ages birth to 5.
These books feel as abundant as a farmers’ market! Colorful illustrations of delectable whole fruits and vegetables, including everyday crowd-pleasers and some items more obscure, are a wonderful way to increase children’s familiarity with foods that make up the foundation of a healthy diet. Fruit begins,“Huckleberry, strawberry, watermelon, plum. Apricot, mango, let’s have some!” Anderson continues the satisfying rhythm and rhyme throughout both books. An excerpt from Vegetables reads, “Celery, rhubarb, cucumber, bean. Potato, tomato, yellow, and green.” The final spreads bring each book to an exuberant close. Anderson’s excellent use of color, for both the food and the background, will increase any reader’s appetite.
Mother Goose Numbers on the Loose, by Leo and Diane Dillon. 2007. Orlando, FL: Harcourt.
32 pp. ISBN 9780152056766. Ages birth to 6.
The Dillons, a Caldecott Award-winning husband-and-wife team, bring us a terrific Mother Goose book in which all the rhymes incorporate counting or numbers. Jovial this time around, their illustrations seem to march onward across each page, lending momentum and flow to a book otherwise made up of separate rhymes. The gouache illustrations are bold, precise, and large but never static. Most characters on the page present quite a spectacle: many wear oversized ornate masks depicting animals, one woman wears a decorated pot for a hat, and a man in polka dot pants with his face painted blue fits right in. The Dillons seamlessly incorporate multicultural figures into the book, which is not commonplace in Mother Goose collections. Join the parade of characters! This is a remarkable book.
First the Egg, by Laura Vaccaro Seeger. 2007. New Milford, CT: Roaring Brook. 29 pp.
ISBN 9781596432727. Ages 1 to 6.
This beautiful book offers a fresh perspective on life cycles and growing. Seeger begins simply: “First the egg, then the chicken. First the tadpole, then the frog.” Readers will enjoy her use of peekaboo cutouts in addition to bright illustrations with chunky brushstrokes. With a turn of the page, cutouts transform an egg into a chicken, a seed into a flower, and a caterpillar into a butterfly. Venturing away from the animal kingdom, Seeger eventually adds new concepts: “First the word, then the story. First the paint, then the picture.” A creative flourish at the end brings us back to the chicken, laying an egg. “First the chicken, then the egg,” writes the author, giving readers the reverse of what she tells them on page one. Alas, Seeger doesn’t offer any definitive answers to that age-old question, “Which came first?”
My Grandma/Mi Abuelita, by Ginger Foglesong Guy. Illustrated by Viví Escrivá. 2007. New York: HarperCollins. 20 pp. ISBN 9780060790981. Ages 2 to 6.
This bilingual book follows a family living in an apartment in a U.S. city back to their home country to visit Grandma. The illustrations do most of the storytelling, while select vocabulary is presented in both languages to help narrate the journey. Words and phrases include good morning, taxi, suitcase, I’m flying, houses, roads, and grandma. Lovely illustrations and well-chosen text bridge many aspects of this family’s two ways of life—urban and rural, English and Spanish, new home and old home—in this warm, loving story.
I Love My Pirate Papa, by Laura Leuck. Illustrated by Kyle M. Stone. 2007. Orlando, FL: Harcourt. 28 pp. ISBN 9780152056643. Ages 3 to 6.
Who knew pirates could be such sympathetic characters? A small boy describes life at sea with his pirate papa, giving readers a humorous look at the soft, domestic side of a scruffy pirate. “I get to walk along the plank and leap into his lap,” the boy tells readers. “I’ve learned the letter X because he lets me read his map.” Every pirate must loot, of course, and the looting in this book is child-friendly: father and son find their treasure by digging in the sand. Both tender and salty at the same time, this dedicated father knows how to care for his boy. At bedtime, he tucks him in with his stuffed animal and reads him a book about Captain Hook. Wonderful, vibrant illustrations and trim, rhyming text make this an excellent read-aloud.
The Princess and the Pea, by Rachel Isadora. 2007. New York: Penguin.
32 pp. ISBN 9780399246111. Ages 3 to 7.
Readers have long loved the classic Hans Christian Anderson tale about the princess who can’t get a decent night’s sleep after a pea is placed beneath her mattresses. In this version, Rachel Isadora takes readers to Africa, where a prince combs the continent, from Ethiopia to Kenya to Somalia, in search of a wife, before a self-proclaimed princess shows up at his door. Isadora’s story is well told, and her collage-style illustrations made from oil paints, printed paper, and palette paper are beautiful. This appealing rendition incorporates various African cultures, styles of dress, and languages. Isadora, author of Ben’s Trumpet and Peekaboo Morning, can add this to her list of winning titles.
Vulture View, by April Pulley Sayre. Illustrated by Steve Jenkins. 2007. New York: Henry Holt.
32 pp. ISBN 9780805075571. Ages 4 to 8.
We never thought we’d become fond of a bird that seeks out rotting meat for dinner. But Sayre and Jenkins show readers that there’s majesty (yes, majesty) in these unconventional avian animals. Sayre’s poetic text and Jenkins’s cut-paper collage illustrations take readers along as a vulture searches for food. “Vultures smell the air. They sniff, search, seek for foods that . . . REEK! . . . Vultures like a mess. They land and dine. Rotten is fine.” Both the language and the illustrations create a strong climax in this well-paced book. Children will be compelled by the occasional glint of goriness—the dramatic illustration of the fallen deer surrounded by hungry birds, for example. Older children will appreciate the “Get to Know Vultures” information spread at the end. What an excellent new nature title!
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Ibel Baker, MAT, MLS,sa is president of The Book Vine for Children, a national company dedicated to getting good books into the hands of preschool children and their teachers. Isabel has worked as a children’s librarian and is currently a presenter on early literacy and book selection.
Miriam Baker Schiffer is a writer and is pursuing an MFA in creative writing at Columbia University in New York.
This article’s content addresses NAEYC Early Childhood Program Standards 2, 3, 5.
Beyond the Journal—Young Children on the Web, January 2008.
Copyright © 2008 by the National Association for the Education
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