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Animal Gas: A Farty Farce by Bryan Ballinger

Source: Sterling Children’s Books
Hardcover, 24 pgs.
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Animal Gas: A Farty Farce by Bryan Ballinger is a children’s book full of smelly farts, which came with a whoopie cushion that has provided hours of fun for a certain little girl in my house.  All young kids and even adults find farts funny — not so much the smell as the noise.  Why bodily functions amuse us is anyone’s guess, but they do.  Ballinger has some fun illustrations of animals who perceive their farts to be the best smelling from cakes to flowers to waffles.  These animals happily fart and other animals come along to tell them what their farts really smell like.  Written in rhyming verse, this book easily captures young readers’ attentions.  Even adults will find themselves chuckling at these farting animals and their antics, particularly that of the goat.

Animal Gas: A Farty Farce by Bryan Ballinger is a fun read for kids and their parents, including when the whoopie cushion is involved and kids want to re-enact the book.  My daughter loves this book so much, I think we’ve read it more than 10 times already.

About the Author:

Bryan Ballinger illustrated a number of children’s books, including books for Scholastic, McGraw/Hill, Running Press Kids, and HarperCollins.

Bryan has also self published a number of books that are available from his website.  You can check out a preview of Animal Gas.  And it’s available in Scratch-and-Sniff.

“Could You Lift Up Your Bottom?” by Hee-jung Chang, illustrated by Sung-hwa Chung

Source: Independent Publishers Group
Hardcover,
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“Could You Lift Up Your Bottom?” by Hee-jung Chung, illustrated by Sung-hwa Chung, is a math concepts book that explains figures, shapes, and space in a story.  This story centers on a frog who loses his favorite hat and an elephant who sits on it and takes advantage of the situation.  He has the frog get him food in different shapes and sizes, and promises each time to lift his butt off of the frog’s hat.  It becomes clear to the frog that he will have to be more savvy than the elephant who is being unkind.

Although my daughter and I read this book and we called out the shapes together until she was confident herself to shout them out alone, she told me that the elephant — who looks like a mixed media hodgepodge — was scary looking.  It was hard for her to focus on this book given her response to the elephant, but I tried to refocus her on the shapes in the book.

“Could You Lift Up Your Bottom?” by Hee-jung Chung, illustrated by Sung-hwa Chung, includes a great breakdown of categories for shapes — round shapes including circles and ovals, etc.  There are some interesting activities in the back that involve food as well, which my daughter enjoyed.  Overall the concepts in the book are well planned out and discussed, but the drawings here are less pleasant than those in the other books of this series.

Who Eats First? by Ae-hae Yoon, illustrated by Hae-won Yang

Source: Independent Publishers Group
Hardcover, 38 pgs
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Who Eats First? by Ae-Hae Yoon, illustrated by Hae-won Yang, is another book in the math concepts of books that teach math basics through story-telling.  This book is a story about placing items and animals in various orders from smallest to biggest, fattest to smallest, and tallest to shortest.  This helps children understand how to differentiate size and type using animals.  The activities in the back are relatively easy to execute from putting numbered cards in order, rearranging them and having people draw them and then being placed in order.  These books would be great for classroom use.

Finding a delicious peach in the rainforest might seem odd, but these animals only care how good it will taste once they bite into it.  While they all want to share it, they are unsure who should go first when taking that first juicy bite.  There are different attempts to measure the animals and determine who should go first, but there are also discussions about differences, like who has the most legs, the longest ears, the longest tail, the longest neck, etc.  The book goes over the various ways to measure things from height to weight and more.  The pictures will help kids understand those concepts clearly.

Who Eats First? by Ae-Hae Yoon, illustrated by Hae-won Yang, is engaging and fun, and the activities can help parents and teachers engage children in math lessons.  My daughter and I have had fun measuring a variety of things in the house and outside, and spying differences between animals and ourselves.

A Day at Grandma’s by Mi-ae Lee, illustrated by Yang-sook Choi

Source: Independent Publishers Group
Hardcover, 34 pgs
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A Day at Grandma’s by Mi-ae Lee, illustrated by Yang-sook Choi, is part of a series of math concepts books that teach basic math concepts through story-telling.  This book has a focus on time of day — dawn, morning, noon, afternoon, dusk, and night — and the difference between today, yesterday, and tomorrow.  The young girl spends an entire day with her grandmother, while her mother goes about her day, missing her daughter.  The mother talks about what she and her daughter would do at each time of day together and the daughter at her grandmother’s explains how she spends her day with her grandmother and compares it to life at home.

This simple story, children can learn how long an actual day is and can create a pie chart filled with their own activities, like the one in the back of the book.  Children that love art projects could turn this pie chart into something really visual with cut outs from magazines and newspapers, as well as drawings.  Parents should explain the different times of day and what accomplishments and activities they do as a family during those time periods.

A Day at Grandma’s by Mi-ae Lee, illustrated by Yang-sook Choi, is a cute story on its own about spending time away from our parents, even as young kids and how that can be an adventure filled with stories to be shared, rather than something that’s scary.  It also can help teach children about different times of day, and allow them to look at their own lives and routines in new ways.

Ally-Saurus & the First Day of School by Richard Torrey

Source: Sterling Children’s Books
Hardcover, 32 pgs.
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Ally-Saurus & the First Day of School by Richard Torrey is a carefully crafted story about an imaginative young lady who leaves home to attend school for the first time.  Her mother assures her that she will make friends once she gets there, buoyed by this, Ally heads off to school.  She loves dinosaurs and imagines herself as one not only at home but at her new classroom as well.  She greets her teacher as a dinosaur would and eats her lunch as a dino would.  She’s not as odd as adults might think because the other students in her class act in similar ways, though none act as dinos.  From princesses to lions and astronauts, these kids have vivid imaginations.  Initially, they are wary of those who are different from one another, but eventually, their perceptions of one another are broken down and they learn to play with one another.  There is even one classmate who does not have an over-active imagination, and he’s accepted too.

My daughter and I loved this book and roared with Ally as she entered the classroom and played with her new friends.  We loved the adventures she took with her friends on the playground and hope that there are more books with Ally to come.  The illustrations are reminiscent of chalk drawings for the most part, which goes well with the theme — the first day of school.  Parents can use this tale to help ease the fears of their own kids before they enter school for the first time.

Ally-Saurus & the First Day of School by Richard Torrey is fantastic, inventive, and we loved it.  We’ll likely read this many more times before my daughter enters Kindergarten, so may by by then, she’ll be ready for her own new adventure.

About the Author:

Richard Torrey is the author and illustrator of a number of well-loved children’s books, including Almost, Why?, and the popular Beans Baker series. Mr. Torrey lives in Shoreham, New York.

Gorillas in Our Midst by Richard Fairgray and Terry Jones

Source: Sky Horse Press
Hardcover, 32 pages
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Gorillas in Our Midst by Richard Fairgray and Terry Jones, is titled in a way that will remind adult readers of that movie, Gorillas in the Mist, but this is not that movie and this boy is not Diane Fossey.  He’s been told from a young age that he should always carry a banana with him because a gorilla could show up at any time and anywhere.  In fact, they often get jobs in which they wear masks, like surgeons or scuba divers, but they also disguise themselves with funny masks and t-shirts that say they are not gorillas.  This book contains fun plays on names, like Gorilliam Shakespeare and Apebraham Lincoln, but it also is fun to read with children and ask them to spot the hidden gorillas in the background.

Our narrator also is quick to explain how gorillas are adept at hiding but not other types of primates.  The surprise ending will have kids laughing as well.  My daughter and I were giggling at its conclusion after trying spot all of the gorillas throughout the book.  As you can tell, we make reading a game sometimes.  It’s always good to make reading as fun as it can be.

Gorillas in Our Midst by Richard Fairgray and Terry Jones is a cute book that can become a game for parents and kids reading together, and there isn’t a whole lot of text, so it can be easily used to help children begin the stages of word recognition.  The illustrations here have an old comic strip feel to them, like those that used to be in the newspaper and that every kid and adult loved to share over the breakfast table.

About the Authors:

Richard Fairgray is also an active Podcaster, blogger, and writer/illustrator of picture books. His Morgan series has sold well throughout New Zealand and overseas and his new title Gorillas In Our Midst was released in April worldwide.

Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson

Source: Public Library
Hardcover, 337 pgs.
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Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson, a National Book Award Winner and Newbery Honor Book, is a coming-of-age novel in verse that is fresh and child-like in its perspective.  Jacqueline Woodson clearly bases her novel on her own experiences as a young black girl who grows up in a home with a single mother and older siblings.  Moving from Ohio and her father to Greenville, S.C., in the 1960s to live with her mother, siblings, and grandparents, Jackie is too young to understand the breakup of her family and remember her past.  Running in parallel to the Civil Rights Movement, young Jackie learning her letters and trying to keep up with her older siblings.  As she finds she doesn’t measure up to her smart sister in the classroom, she also learns that each sibling may have hidden talents, like her brother’s singing voice.

From "February 12, 1963" (pg.1-2)

I am born in Ohio but
the stories of South Carolina already run
like rivers
through my veins.

From "My Mother and Grace" (page 25-26)

Both know that southern way of talking
without words, remember when
the heat of summer
could melt the mouth,
so southerners stayed quiet

Jackie is a young girl finding her way, looking to be strong, but also learning to listen to her elders and to others influencing the civil rights movement. She hasn’t made up her mind, but she’s learning piece by piece what it means to be a young black woman in the south and how that differs from being black in New York.  Woodson’s style is frank, but firmly rooted in the point of view of a young girl who observes both the benefits of the movement and the drawbacks of fighting for what you believe in.  Along the way, she becomes friends with Maria whose mother cooks the best Hispanic food, and they do everything together, including swap dinners in the stairwell.

Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson is a journey of a young black woman growing up in the 60s and 70s and serves as an excellent introduction to not only the time period, but also the struggles of black in the south and in the north for those ages 10 and up.  There are moments in which the author relies on a dream-like quality to present her narrator’s ideals, but at other points, it is very clear cut what has happened.  In many ways, this rendition is a mere outline of the harsher parts of life and it is reflected well through a child’s eyes.

About the Author:

Jacqueline Woodson is an American writer of books for children and adolescents. She is best known for Miracle’s Boys, which won the Coretta Scott King Award in 2001, and her Newbery Honor-winning titles Brown Girl Dreaming, After Tupac & D Foster, Feathers, and Show Way. Her work is filled with strong African-American themes, generally aimed at a young adult audience.

For her lifetime contribution as a children’s writer, Woodson won the Margaret Edwards Award in 2005 and she was the U.S. nominee for the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2014. IBBY named her one of six Andersen Award finalists on March 17, 2014. She won the National Book Award in 2014 in the category of “Young People’s Literature” for Brown Girl Dreaming.

 

 

 

 

 

Firefly July: A Year of Very Short Poems selected by Paul B. Janeczko, illustrated by Melissa Sweet

Source: Public Library
Hardcover, 48 pgs
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Firefly July: A Year of Very Short Poems selected by Paul B. Janeczko, illustrated by Melissa Sweet, is a collection of some of the most recognizable poems, including William Carlos Williams’ The Red Wheelbarrow, for readers ages 6-9. Most of these poems are short and fit the theme of each season — winter, spring, summer, fall — but even younger readers will enjoy these poems as they are read aloud by their parents. The illustrations are colorful, and the vibrant images perfectly capture the mood of the season.

While some of the concepts in these poems are a little above where my own daughter may be cognitively, she still enjoyed listening to me read them aloud.  I also made sure to denote which season was depicted by each of the poems in the section, and had her point to images in the poems that she found in the illustrations, which kept her attention focused.  For instance, for Raymond Souster’s poem, “Spring,” the illustration depicts the roots of the flower and the beets on the page and the flower and leaves above.

Spring

Rain beats down,
roots stretch up.

They'll meet
in a flower.
The Island

Wrinkled stone
like an elephant's skin
on which young birches are treading.

elephant

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For “The Island” by Lillian Morrison, my daughter looked for the elephant talked about in the poem, and quickly found that he was the island with the trees on top. It became a word game for us, and while some poems don’t lend themselves easily to these kinds of games to keep a toddler’s interest, my daughter also loves the sounds of words, so she would often just sit and listen to me read the poems.

Firefly July: A Year of Very Short Poems selected by Paul B. Janeczko, illustrated by Melissa Sweet, contains not only those well-loved and classic poems from Williams, Dickinson, and Frost, but also poems from more contemporary poets, like Ted Kooser, Hughes, and Crapsey. Such a wide variety in a collection of poems about the seasons offer a great deal of teaching tools for young readers, from learning new words and how language works to what happens in each season scientifically.

***I first saw this book reviewed at Rhapsody in Books.***

About the Editor:

Paul Bryan Janeczko is an American poet and anthologist. He has published 40 books in the last 30 years, including poetry compilations, non-fiction guides for young writers, and books for teachers.

About the Illustrator:

Melissa Sweet has illustrated nearly 100 children’s books from board books to picture books and nonfiction titles. Her collages and paintings have appeared in the New York Times, Martha Stewart Living, Madison Park Greetings, Smilebox and for eeBoo Toys, which have garnered the Oppenheim and Parents Choice Awards.

How Tiger Says Thank You! and How Penguin Says Please! by Abigail Samoun, illustrated by Sarah Watts

Source: Sterling Children’s Books
Hardcover, 22-24 pgs
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How Penguin Says Please! and How Tiger Says Thank You! by Abigail Samoun, illustrated by Sarah Watts, are both part of the little traveler series of board books for ages 2-4. Kids love learning new words and why should learning a foreign language be any different.  At this age, kids are sponges ready to absorb anything they can get their hands or ears on, which also can spell trouble if you’re not careful when filtering your own behavior.  These little board books contain not only colorful illustrations of Penguin and Tiger’s travels, but also maps that illustrate the routes they took around the world.

Although there is no storyline per se, tiger and penguin are teaching kids and parents how to say Please and Thank You — which are some of the most important words in teaching children manners — in different languages, ranging from Chinese to Russian and Indian.  Tiger not only thanks a flight attendant, but also a balloon vendor, a market merchant, and others on her journey, while Penguin says please to an airline ticket agent, a bakery clerk, someone who takes her picture and others.

How Penguin Says Please! and How Tiger Says Thank You! by Abigail Samoun, illustrated by Sarah Watts, offer a great place to start learning new languages for kids.  They make travel to other countries less frightening, and make it easy for parents to pronounce the foreign words with the a key on each page for sounding out the words.  My daughter and I had fun with the travels and we talked about each country and what information I could provide in addition to the please and thank you word pronunciation aspect.  She loves books with maps and different cultures, soaking up all the information she can.  She is full of questions, and I cannot wait to hear her start trying to pronounce these words right alongside their English counterparts.

Take a Peek with Peek-a-Bear by Jill Mangel Weisfeld

Source: STRATEGIES Literary Public Relations
Hardcover, 12 pgs
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Take a Peek with Peek-a-Bear by Jill Mangel Weisfeld, illustrated by Garry Thorburn, is one of the latest favorites in my house.  My daughter can just spend some quiet time with this one in her lap and experience what Peek-a-Bear experiences even without someone reading the text to her.  She knows the various modes of transportation the bear finds himself traveling on already, which probably helps with her own version of the narration.

Peek-a-Bear has some interactive parts that readers can pull, lift, open, and rotate to see the latest scene.  He rides all kinds of transportation vehicles from a Ferris Wheel to a boat and train.  He takes a number of trips in this book and sees some fascinating creatures, including an octopus who likes peanut butter.  Take a Peek with Peek-a-Bear by Jill Mangel Weisfeld, illustrated by Garry Thorburn, is fun and can be turned into a game of what do your kids see outside the window.  This game can be carried over into your own travels on vacation or just to the grocery store.

ABC Universe by American Museum of Natural History

Source: Sterling Children’s Books
Hardcover, 18 pgs
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ABC Universe by American Museum of Natural History is not your typical book about the alphabet.  Whether you have daughters, sons, nieces, or nephews who are just starting to learn their letters, this board book presents vivid and interesting pictures for kids to associate with their new letters.  Young kids always find things they are unfamiliar with in their daily lives fascinating.  Outer space is a big wide and different world from that here on Earth.  My daughter LOVES outer space stories, and this combines learning new words with things she’s interested in.  I think since this book entered the house in March, my daughter and I have read it about 10 times or more.  She’s starting to know some of the words on her own by looking at the picture, like Astronaut, and she can tell me what letter the words start with.  Harder words, like Quasar, are more difficult, but she does recognize the Q at the beginning of the word.

ABC Universe by American Museum of Natural History is a fun introduction to not only the alphabet, but also things found in outer space.  It will get kids thinking about words that they are not readily familiar with and they will see outer space in a different way.  We have fun with this book, and we’ll probably read it another 10 times before the year is out.

My Friend Suhana by Shaila Abdullah and Aanyah Abdullah

Source: Loving Healing Press, Inc.
Paperback, 30 pgs
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My Friend Suhana: A Story of Friendship and Cerebral Palsy by Shaila Abdullah and Aanyah Abdullah is a story about overcoming fear of the unknown to find new friendships are everywhere as long as you remain open to them.  Suhana has cerebral palsy, who expresses delight and plays differently from other kids.  Her friend has learned how to connect with Suhana through art and color.  Rainbows and kites are among her favorites, and through this simply told story, young readers will learn how to connect with those who are different.

It is clear from the back of the book that Abdullah has taken inspiration from her own 10-year-old daughter’s interactions with the disabled children at a local community center.  The story is sweet and touching, and the explanation of cerebral palsy in the back of the book can be a jumping off point for discussion with kids.  Friendship is about connection, and that connection does not have to be expressed in words alone.

My Friend Suhana: A Story of Friendship and Cerebral Palsy by Shaila Abdullah and Aanyah Abdullah is another great book to read with children to begin teaching them about different friendships, compassion, and never underestimating the ability to love that is within all of us.

Previously reviewed books:

About the Author:

Noted as “Word Artist” by critics, Shaila Abdullah is an award-winning author and designer based in Austin, Texas. She is the author of five books: Saffron Dreams, Beyond the Cayenne Wall, My Friend Suhana, Rani in Search of a Rainbow, and A Manual for Marco. The author has received several awards for her work including the Golden Quill Award and Patras Bukhari Award for English Language. Several academic institutions have adopted her books as course study or recommended reading, including the University of California, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Indiana University, Boston University, California State University, and George Washington University.