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Did you know that a crocodile goes through at least 3,000 teeth in its lifetime? Keep reading… Les sciences naturelles de Tatsu Nagata is a French series of nature books written by Japanese scientist Tatsu Nagata and illustrated by French illustrator Thierry Dedieu. Each title focuses on an animal; the one I borrowed from the [...]

September 8th is International Literacy Day. Keep reading… One day is just not enough to celebrate all the great books out there, so B is for Books is going to declare September International Literacy Month. For the next few of weeks in September, we will explore children’s books from around the world and embrace this [...]

As a kid, Saturday mornings were spent in my PJs with a big bowl of sugar cereal (breakfast of champions), glued to the telly watching The Flintstones, The Jetsons, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?, and The Smurfs. Rituals are not meant to be broken. Keep reading… Huckleberry Hound Safety Signs was written by Ann McGovern and [...]

Continuing with the bear theme… Keep reading… The Biggest Bear was written and illustrated by Lynd Ward in 1952. It revolves around a character named Johnny Orchard. Johnny is jealous that every family – with the exception his — has a bear pelt hanging from their barn. With a rifle in hand he sets out [...]

This one is for Jori, who is knows all the names of the trees in the forest. Keep reading… Deep in the Forest written and illustrated by Brinton Turkle is a story about a curious baby bear that wreaks havoc in the cabin of a pioneer family out for a walk. Illustrated only with pictures [...]

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This one is for my dad who has been poked and prodded by doctors and nurses the last couple of weeks. Keep reading…  

Hi Folks, A family emergency came up so posting for B is for Books will be spotty for the next couple of weeks. Meanwhile I’ll be posting scans from my library of Richard Scarry collections. Thank you for your patience! Thao Keep reading…

Binky goes to work every day. Very punctual, you can be find Binky curled up under the office desk sound a sleep by 9 am morning. He has great work ethic and puts in long hours when needed (Binky will remain sleeping until quitting time). He is a caring coworker; if he thinks you are [...]

Lots of things go bump in the night. When I was a kid, any sound coming out of the dark would send my imagination running wild (to be honest it still does). For years I would sleep under the covers, thinking it would hide me from any monster, goblins or ghosts. My philosophy: if I [...]

I get an obscene amount of spam offering me everything from a good time to magical pills that would enhance body parts I don’t even have. Recently I found buried among the junk an email from Owlkids Books that knocked my sock off. It was an offer to go through their 2011 catalog and pick [...]

As seniors in high school we got to go camping for a couple of days as a class field trip. It was an attempt to recreate the trips taken by the Group of Seven, a group of Canadian landscape painters who spent days in the wilderness drawing and searching for inspiration. Since I had never [...]

I can’t remember the last time I went to the zoo. When we were kids we used to go all the time. All of us would pile into my dad’s red station wagon and head off to the zoo; by the end of the day we would all be tired and smelly from having spent [...]

Sometimes you just need to take a walk to clear your mind. Read more after the jump. Best described as “A sunny, slapstick silent comedy” by The New York Times, Rosie’s Walk, written and illustrated by Pat Hutchins is a story about Rosie the hen, who went for a walk blissfully unaware of the fox trailing [...]

Brutal Canadian winters become a distant memory when temperatures hit the high 30’s (Celsius). For the last couple of days the city has been wrapped in a thick blanket of hot air; causing sweat to pour out of every crevice, even when I’m sitting still. With heat alerts issued, the city pools have become popular [...]

You know that feeling you get when you are riding a roller coaster? Fear and excitement rolled together! Screaming for your life in terror, and so excited you want to hurl! That pretty much sums up how I feel about my upcoming camping trip. I agreed to spend three days in the woods before finding [...]

S-N-A-K-E, just saying the word makes my skin crawl. When I was 6, I rushed home from Sunday school with a full bladder. Making a mad dash to the bathroom I was just about to sit down when out of the corner of my eye I spotted something slithering in the tub. My grandfather went [...]

I kept a journal as a kid, which I poured all my teenage angst into. Anger, gossip, heartbreaks, embarrassing moments, the best days and the worst days of my teenage years all recorded. The pages of my journals were a jumbled mess of thoughts and feelings. I burned them years later not wanting a reminder [...]

I am off to New York for a couple of days, packing my copy of A Walk in New York, Up & Down New York and This is New York, my official travel guides to the big city. I am leaving plenty of room in my luggage to bring back souvenirs because New York City is [...]

Last summer we drove miles and miles and refilled the gas tank so we could drive miles and miles more (and this was after traveling by train and Greyhound bus) to go see The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art. This museum has been on my list of things to do for years, and [...]

With their very long ears, bilbies look like a cross between a rabbit and a mouse, and are sadly endangered. To bring awareness to this species, Australians have marketed bilbies as a native alternative to the Easter Bunny by selling chocolate Easter Bilbies, which is even sadder. Read more after the jump. Baby Bilby, Where Do [...]

Shhhhhhhh… Read more after the jump. “Miss Merriweather, the head librarian, is very particular about rules in the library. No running allowed. And you must be quiet. But when a lion comes to the library one day, no one is sure what to do. There aren’t any rules about lions in the library.” Perfect for story time, [...]

Who’s afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? Read more after the jump. Portrayed as big and scary, wolves are known to have cravings for girls in red capes, grandmas and little pigs. There is an unfair representation of wolves in children’s books, a gross amount of stereotyping. Like us, wolves have friends and family (wolves are [...]

“Once upon a time three pigs built three houses, out of straw, sticks, and bricks. Along came a wolf, who huffed and puffed…” Read more after the jump. Author and illustrator David Wiesner explores the nature of storytelling in his book, The Three Pigs. In a new spin on this classic tale, Wiesner gives the three [...]