Best Books of 2010? Part Deux

Yesterday I reviewed the first half of Amazon's picks for Best Children's Books of 2010. Today we finish the list. If you like, you can look at the whole Amazon list here, and of course you can read my earlier post on the first 5 books on the list.

Brontorina, by James Howe. I like this one. Brontorina is trying something that may well not work out -- that takes some courage. The other children are portrayed as helpful and encouraging -- something all children need help being from time to time. The illustrations do a lovely job of conveying just how big Brontorina is, filling the page with her, even to the point that parts of her are off the edges and not visible to the reader. And the problem is resolved not when Brontorina changes, but when everyone around her adapts to her differences. A nice selection.

Ladybug Girl at the Beach, by David Soman: This one gets only a tepid response from me. I know some people are enchanted with this series, but it's a "meh" for me. One book about Ladybug Girl was enough, I think. A fourth book seems too much. Sorry, this one's an SMP (Shameless Marketing Plug).

Of Thee I Sing: A letter to my daughters, by Barack Obama: Well, if it's not an SMP, it's certainly an SPP (Shameless Political Plug), but for all that it's actually kind of a nice book. The illustrations are gorgeous, always a good thing, and the subject matter -- all the qualities the writer either sees in or wants for his children, exemplified by Americans of the past. Children are introduced to Georgia O'Keefe, Billie Holliday, Cesar Chavez, Helen Keller, George Washington...it's wonderfully multi-cultural, historical, even inspirational. For older kids, through 3rd grade.

Three Little Kittens, by Jerry Pinkney: Pinkney has been around quite a while, and has tackled classic fairy tales and nursery rhymes before. He's also a Caldecott Medal Winner for his 2009 The Lion and the Mouse, so anything by him packs a lot of talent and expertise. That's why I feel kind of guilty panning this one. The illustrations, normally a highlight in Pinkney's work, fell flat for me. Yes, they're lush, but they somehow looked like he was channelling Jan Brett and the fusion didn't quite work for me. And frankly, as nursery rhymes go, The Three Little Kittens is one of the more annoying ones out there, so for me this whole volume fell flat. Not an SMP, but not, for me, worth a mention on a top 10 list.

Dog Loves Books, by Louise Yates: I'm a sucker for book lovers and this one had me about 3 pages in. Dog does love books -- he loves the smell of them, the feel of them, he loves everything about them. He loves them so much, he decides to open a bookstore. This is a simple story with whimsical, soft watercolor illustrations that capture the imaginative journeys books can take us on. It will appeal to younger children, and maybe even encourage them to love books like dog does.

So there you have it: My highly opinionated take on Amazon's Best Books of 2010.

Best Books of 2010?

Amazon sends me these lists occasionally -- mainly because I spend enough there to support a small, third-world village -- and occasionally I find those lists helpful and interesting. More often, though, I find them to be shameless plugs for the endless spinoffs and sequels that dog the children's book industry.

Yesterday I got another one entitled Best Books of 2010. These are Amazon's editors' picks for best kids books of 2010. Again, it's a list that looks like a mixture of careful consideration and marketing strategy. There are three entries that are sequels, so only 70% of the list is new stuff, some by established authors and some by relative newcomers.

You can view the list on Amazon's Editor's Picks for Children's Picture Books.

Here's my humble take on it:

Art and Max, by David Wiesener: Yes. Wiesener's artwork makes this one a good choice. He's an established author with really innovative illustrations. Love the lizards, love the focus on art, love the gorgeously illustrated story. Deserves a spot on the list.

Olivia Goes to Venice, by Ian Falconer: I loved the first Olivia book. I liked the second, I liked the third, I liked, mildly, the Christmas book, and then I got a little saturated with Olivia and have had no real desire to learn more about her exploits. There's been so much Olivia that this one doesn't really break new ground or offer anything in the way of freshness. Sorry. This one's a Shameless Marketing Plug (SMP)

The Quiet Book, by Deborah Underwood, illustrated by Renata Liwska: Yes, Yes, Yes! This is a sweet, achingly simple (in the best possible way) book that shows different kinds of quiet. From "Sleeping sister quiet," to "First look at your new hairstyle quiet," this one is beautifully complimented by Liwska's soft paintings. Excellent for toddlers and young children.

City Dog, Country Frog, by Mo Willems, illustrated by Jon Muth: Here's a pair of established writer/illustrators collaborating on a lovely story about a dog and a frog that become friends. Later, when frog is gone (read: dies) dog remembers him and befriends another. It's for younger kids and may offer a nice way to talk about emotional losses with children as they identify with the animals in the story. Deserves to be on the list.

A Bedtime for Bear (Bear and Mouse) by Bonnie Becker: This one is a sequel to Becker's A Visitor for Bear, but I think it deserves a spot on the list for two reasons. One, it's only the second book in the series and has not reached the point of over-saturation like Olivia, and Two, the chracter of Bear cracks me up. I love that he states things so firmly, so categorically, and that his firmness masks a lot of insecurity. He is pitch-perfect, as is his funny relationship with Mouse, who sees through the insecurity and helps Bear navigate his fears.

This post is so long, that I am going to review the second half of the list in my next post. Stay tuned!

Skippyjon Jones: Lost in Spice

The original Skippyjon Jones was a lot of fun. My kids and I had a ball doing cheesy Mexican accents for all the chihuahuas and we laughed when Skippito Friskito punctured the Great Bumblebeeto.

The second Skippyjon book, Skippyjon Jones: In the Doghouse was a little trip into...well, trippiness. I'm not going to say anyone was smoking crack when they wrote that one, but it didn't make a ton of sense. In fact, the subsequent books made less and less sense, even for the delusional daydreams of a Siamese cat who thinks he's a chihuahua.

So now we have Skippyjon Jones: Lost in Spice and at last there's another SJ book that makes some sense. In this book, Skippyjon blast into space where he encounters an alien twin -- a Martian Skippyjon in glowing green. And why is he lost in spice (an inside joke only for parents)? Because the Red Planet is covered in chili powder, of course. That's why it's red.

The pictures are bright and attractive; I do like Judy Schachner's artwork. The story makes about as much sense as the first book, and considerably more sense than the second book. Worth buying in hardback? Probably not, but perhaps worth it in paperback and certainly worth checking out from the library.

Classic Monday: Dear Zoo

Here's a super cute book that kids adore: Dear Zoo, by Rod Campbell, is a lift-the-flap book about a child who writes to the zoo asking them to send a pet. The zoo sends an elephant, but "He was too big. I sent him back." Next comes a lion, but "He was too fierce. I sent him back." Later comes a camel, unfortunately "He was too grumpy. I sent him back."and so on.

The text is spare, the pictures are simple, and the flaps are medium-sized for smaller hands. Kids memorize this one quickly and take great delight in finishing the sentences. It's appropriate for babies right through the toddler years and makes a great baby shower gift for parents-to-be.

Learning to Get Along

I really like this series. We got the first three books ages ago when they comprised the whole series, but now it's grown to about 15 books, covering topics like politeness, sharing, empathy, safety, fears, anger, listening, acceptance, giving, and participation. The author, Cheri Meiners, is a former elementary educator who now teaches at the university level. She does a nice job of breaking these topics down so they're approachable for the preschool/kindergarten set.

Pictures are bright and nicely rendered. They do an especially good job of conveying emotions through facial expressions. Also, the pictures are very multicultural: the central character of Understand and Care is Asian; Be Polite and Kind's central character is Latino. Other books do a similarly good job of including children of many races.

These books are also good ones for starting conversations about feelings, reactions, other people's feelings, behaviors...just about anything you might need to talk to your 2-6 year old about. My almost-4-year-old loves Understand and Care; she enjoys identifying how people feel from their facial expressions and we spent some time talking about what you might say to someone who felt afraid or sad or angry. Such a great springboard to talking about and teaching empathy -- how do other people feel? How can you use your imagination to figure out what they're feeling? We've been having a lot of tantrums around here lately, so Cool Down and Work Through Anger is looking like a good title for us to pick up. And we've been talking about blessing other people, so Reach Out and Give might be another possibility.

These may be available at your public library -- ours carries the first three titles -- and they're all available in paperback through your favorite bookseller. It might even be worth checking your church library, as they were popular with churches when they first came out.

Images courtesy of BarnesandNoble.com

Magazines for Kids

Access to books is a critical aspect of cultural capital. But equally important is exposure to a range of texts and formats -- it allows children to transfer the skills they learn reading fiction to other mediums, and adapt them to works of different format and lengths.

Magazines are a great way to give kids experience with different kinds of texts -- poems, non-fiction articles, short stories, song lyrics.

Back in the stone age, when Bookivore was a kid, there was one magazine for kids: Highlights. That was it, folks. Now there is a veritable feast of magazines for children, some quite excellent, some just thinly-veiled advertisements for products, TV shows and movies. Highlights is still a favorite at our house: it's far more colorful than what it was when I was a kid, and nicely multicultural too, teaching about Diwali, Ramadan, Chinese New Year and a host of other cultural celebrations and traditions. The magazine works hard at promoting good values and good behavior, which it does this from a sense of fair play rather than from any particular belief system. It's a nice blend of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, comic strips and puzzles that appeals to kids from 3 to 10.


A nice addition to the Highlights stable is High Five, their magazine for 2-5 year olds. The text is much simpler, pictures are larger and fill the pages. It has the same focus on good morals, though the message is obviously greatly simplified. One lovely feature of both these magazines is no advertising.


I absolutely love these next three, put out by the National Wildlife Federation: Ranger Rick (at the top of this post) Your Big Backyard, and Wild Animal Baby.


Like the two Highlights magazines, the NWF's offerings are stepped for different age groups. Ranger Rick is for ages 7 and up, though for independent reading your child might need to be a little older. Your Big Backyard is for 3-7 year olds, and Wild Animal Baby is for 1-4 year olds.



One nice feature about Wild Animal Baby is that it comes in a board book format of heavier cardboard, rather than flimsy magazine pages. It's perfect for little hands to hold. The photography in all these magazines is fantastic and the range of articles is impressive -- whatever animals your little ones like, they'll show up eventually in these pages, one way or another. Another blessing: no ads to disrupt your reading.

National Geographic Kids is another one we get, but I would be lying if I said it was a favorite. It was a gift, otherwise I'd cancel my subscription. I find the layout overly busy and it's loaded with ads for candy and video games. Additionally, it contains feature articles on movies -- special effects, actor interviews, etc. Not strictly National Geographic stuff -- more along the lines of paid endorsements. In and among the plugs are some interesting articles about animal rescues, critter cams, and habitats, but it's pretty buried in junk. Ostensibly for 6-14 year olds, but I can't see kids sticking with it that long.

Another one for 2-6 year olds that gets good reviews is Ladybug. It's colorful and full of stories, poems. The publishers also have a magazine called Babybug, which is made of heavy stock like Wild Animal Baby. They also publish one called Click! which is geared more towards science and nature.

Of a similar nature is Spider, which is for 6-9 year olds. It includes stories, poems, articles and illustrations from around the world.

For older kids, there are magazines about science, like Odyssey.


And magazines about world history, like Calliope.


If you have a sports nut, Sports Illustrated for Kids might be a good choice. Parents rated this one very highly because it focuses on the positive achievements of athletes and their good sportsmanship, rather than on their questionable activities and sexual antics. One word of caution here would be that kids may assume the adult version of SI is okay because of their exposure to SIKids. Obviously the articles in SI are going to burst some bubbles, so that's something to consider.

Appleseeds is a magazine full of non-fiction and social studies articles for kids ages 7-9. Each issue covers a particular theme: Becoming President, Whiz Kids, Unusual Structures, Halloween. Rather a narrow age range, but the content makes it of use in giving kids experience with non-fiction text.

Ask is for 7-10 year olds covering science, inventions, recipes, web activities, projects, and other activities. Each issue is devoted to a particular theme -- water, camouflage, migration, the musical brain, etc.

Cricket has been around since the '70s and is another publication that celebrates fiction, though this time from established, even classical writers like Shakespeare, Robert Frost, Shel Silverstein, and Lloyd Alexander. It also includes games and puzzles. It's geared for 9-14 year olds.


This is really just a sampling. There are many more publications for kids, of varying quality: American Girl Magazine, Kids Discover, Boy's Life, Cobblestone, Girl's Life, Disney Princess, Dig, Nick Jr. Preschool Playroom. The list goes on and on.



Before subscribing, go to your library and see what these magazines offer -- look at several issues, if possible, to get a sense of the kind of content they regularly offer. Be leery of magazine that contain a lot of ads: they really will encourage your kids to pester you for Yogos, or whatever. And if the subscription prices seem too high, remember that magazine subscriptions make excellent birthday and Christmas gifts from Grandma and Grandpa. All of our subscriptions have been gifts and they are very much appreciated.

Images courtesy of Amazon.com and National Wildlife Federation

Happy Earth Day: Pond Circle

In honor of Earth Day, here's a book for the preschool/kindergarten set that clarifies, very simply and beautifully, the circle of life in a pond. Pond Circle, by Betsy Franco, is written on a "This is the House that Jack Built" model: "This is the algae, the jade green algae," and "This is the skunk, the shy striped skunk," etc. Each animal depends on the others for food, and they all depend, directly or indirectly, on the algae, which is the foundation of the whole pond.

If there were no algae, there would be no mayfly nymph; without the nymph, there would be no diving beetle; without the beetle, no frogs would eat, and so on through snakes and owls and raccoons until at last we meet the stalking coyote. At the very back of the book are a couple pages with more facts about each animal or plant in the story.

Love the pictures on this one; they're either painted on wood or painted to look like wood grain, the grain itself suggesting the ripples in the pond water or the eddying colors of a sunset. Pictures are all on 2-page spreads, very large and colorful, making this a good choice for a group read-aloud. This one will play especially well with preschoolers because of its engaging rhythm and repeated word patterns.

The publisher says this one is good from age 4 up through 3rd grade, but I doubt you'd find many 9 year olds wanting to read it. On the other hand, I bet they'd listen in if you were reading it to a younger child. A nice book to introduce children to the idea of the interconnectedness of our environment.

Images courtesy of BarnesandNoble.com

Classic Monday, Now onThursday! (Or Why George and Martha Got a Little Sidetracked...)

Bookivore had every intention of posting on Monday, but Thursday and Friday of last week we got buried in snow. Then the kids were off for MLK's birthday, and then, after only ONE DAY back at school, we got covered with this:

Yes, that's ice.

So, we had yet another snow day. We're up to 5 now. It's looking like we'll be making up snow days until mid-June. Anyway, with all three of my children home, I have gotten precisely nothing done. Until today.

And George and Martha, by James Marshall, deserve my undivided attention.

These books have been around since the 70s and early 80s and they are family favorites around here. What's great about them is that they work on two levels: first as excellent read-aloud stories, and second as good books for early readers.

Two of the truly charming things about George and Martha are their friendship and the dry, witty humor that often underlies their activities. The writing is for children, but it's good children's writing: writing that doesn't talk down to them or over-simplify things. Kids get the humor in George and Martha.

Each book is divided in to 5 short stories, which qualifies them as "chapter books" on the same order as the Henry and Mudge books. Sometimes the stories are connected, but often they are not. In George and Martha:Back in Town, the story "The Big Scare" has George leaping out at Martha and shouting "Boo!" The startled and annoyed Martha warns him that she's going to scare him next. The rest of the story is George saying to himself, "Any minute now, Martha is going to scare the pants off me!" and looking for her in unlikely places, such as beneath the kitchen sink, where she patently would not fit. He spends the rest of the story in paranoid anticipation until Martha, calmly reading in her hammock, finally says, "Oh, I'm sorry --I forgot to scare you." The following story, "The Amusement Park," has George and Martha enjoying the roller coaster, the Ferris wheel and the bumper cars before finally taking a trip through the tunnel of love. THAT'S when Martha yells "BOO!" and George screams "Have Mercy!" Martha remarks, "I guess I didn't forget after all."

Sometimes their friendship is strained, as when George, the new lifeguard, has to give Martha a bawling out for misbehaving on the beach and she beans him with his megaphone. "This is a tough job," he says as she storms off.

Other times, they are quick to come to each other's rescue, as when George attempts to go off the high-dive and panics at the very top. "I'm coming!" shouts Martha (who earlier said you wouldn't catch her up there!). She climbs to the top and does a cannonball and in the huge splash that follows, George is able to get down without anyone seeing him or making fun of him.

Another favorite of ours is from One Fine Day. George decides in "The Icky Story," to tell an icky story while he and Martha are eating. "Have some consideration!" Martha says. But he tells it anyway. In revenge, Martha tells her own icky story and George is too grossed out to eat his dessert. "You win," says George. "Don't make me do it again," says Martha.

This is no sappy My Little Pony love, it's the portrait of a friendship between two imperfect characters who nonetheless love each other and are committed to taking care of each other.

There are 7 books in the series, as well as a new collection of early readers. I can't comment on those, but I would have my doubts about anything that played fast and loose with Marshall's excellent prose. Likewise it was made into a series for HBO, but since we are probably the only family in America without cable, I can't comment on that either, other than to say that cartoons based on really excellent books seldom capture the essence of what makes the books so good.

Read them to your preschoolers, then get your first and second graders to read them to you. Either way, they're getting a serving of great kids' literature.

Beautiful Brown Eyes

Marianne Richmond's Beautiful Brown Eyes is a sweet little book about all the things we see when we look at our children's eyes. In a realistic dialogue between a mother and child, it reaffirms the connection parents have with their little ones, the way we learn to "read" them, their moods and expressions, the way we stalk them with our cameras trying to capture those little faces.

All the eyes in the book are brown and Richmond's artwork, a mixture of paint and collage, is reminiscent of Karen Katz, but softer and more textured. The colors are earthy, muted and homey -- a nice match to the text. If you don't have a brown-eyed child, don't worry: according to Richmond's blog, there will eventually be a Beautiful Blue Eyes as well. This is a nice little bedtime or naptime book, probably for one-, two- or three-year olds.

How to Potty Train Your Monster

What a cute book. How to Potty Train Your Monster by Kelly DiPucchio takes the potty training concept book and turns it on its head. Instead of a 2-3 year old, the monster must be 200-300 years old. Instead of a smaller potty chair, monsters need huge potty chairs. And of course, monsters don't read books on the potty, they eat them. Naturally, Bookivore appoves of this wholeheartedly.

The artwork by Mike Moon is cartoony and fun, and it does a nice job of treating a sometimes-serious subject in a lighthearted way. If the battle over toilet training has gotten tense at your house (like it sometimes has at mine) this is a good tool for defusing the stress, for you if not for your child.

It sure helped me to remember to lighten up a little and realize I'm going to look back on the potty training years with laughter. Might as well start now.

Alphabet Week -- 5 Days of Great Alphabet Books, Day 5

Since the holidays will be upon us before we know it, I wanted to include an alphabet book that is a special favorite at our house. We use it around Christmastime not really to learn our letters, but to recount the story of Jesus' birth. If you've been reading all week, you'll know that I am biased toward alphabet books that tell a story so that the letter-learning is embedded in some context. Also, I am a sucker for beautiful artwork. B is for Bethlehem, by Isabel Wilner, has both.


The story of the nativity is told in rhyme, each rhyme beginning with a letter of the alphabet. It's a lucid and lovely retelling of the Christmas story -- perhaps not the one you'd want your kids to hear if it's their first time hearing it, but more than adequate for children who are familiar with the biblical account.


The pictures, by Elisa Kleven, are pure joy -- mixed media collage and drawing in vibrant colors that really bring the story to life. Like Steve Jenkins, I don't know anyone else who does collage quite like Kleven does. Her style is unique and gorgeous. These are pictures that I and my kids never get tired of looking at.

It's been around for a while -- long enough to be out in boardbook format -- but if you can track down a hardcover it would be worth it for the larger picture size and the durability. Especially if you, like me, want it to last for many Christmases to come.

Alphabet Week -- 5 Days of Great Alphabet Books, Day 4

This post is a bit of a cheat because I'm not going to talk about a single book. Rather, I'm going to talk about a category of books called Special Interest Alphabet Books (SAIB): books built entirely around a particular area in which your child has a marked interest. And yes, I just made that up.

This particular book, The Beetle Alphabet Book by Jerry Pallota, is a great, and at our house much-loved, example of this genre. The entire book is devoted to beetles. If you have a bug lover at your house, this is the book for you. Pallota's books are for older kids, 4 years and up. Even my 8 year old occasionally picks this one up because it's loaded with interesting factual information about beetles -- beetle characteristics, weird stuff beetles do, exotic beetles -- it reads like a children's encyclopedia. Because it's so rich with information, my children come back to it again and again. It was an excellent tool for my son's kindergarten year to reinforce letter and sound recognition and it was the hands-down choice for Bring Your Favorite Book To School Day.

Pallotta is probably the king of this kind of book. By my very unscientific count, he's got something like 21 different alphabet books, all highly specific. Here's an example from the text of The Construction Aphabet Book:

The subjects he covers range from airplanes (2 books) to boats to flowers. Vegetables, furry animals, birds, reptiles, the desert, frogs, dinosuars, the ocean, even skulls and extinct animals have their own books. You can visit his website for a complete list of books (he does some neat stuff with math concepts, too).

Two warnings about Pallotta's books: he uses different illustrators for each volume, so the quality of the artwork can sometimes be uneven. The Beetle Alphabet Book has gorgeous pictures, but The Yucky Reptile Alphabet Book has a couple pictures which are dark and make it hard to pick out detail. For this reason, it might be better to go to the bookstore or library and see what you're getting. Also, on occasion he chooses something to represent a letter which doesn't make that letter's sound. This happens twice in The Yucky Reptile Alphabet Book: once with Knob-Tailed Gecko (which he notes is a silent K and adds Komodo Dragon to rectify) and again with Gila Monster for G. If you grew up in the Southwest, as I did, you know that Gila is pronounced "hee-lah." Not at all an English G sound.

Beyond Pallotta, there are any number of other SIABs out there.

There's this one, above, for the dancer in the family. And this one, below, for the dog lover.

W is for Woof is part of a series of SAIBs, which are shown below. It covers some unsual interests, like travel and camping, along with more common interests like cats and horses.

The point of all this is that children always learn more when that learning is embedded in something they're already interested in. It's more than worth the time to seek out alphabet books that will build on that interest.

All images from Amazon.com or BarnesandNoble.com