Happy Perfect Picture Book Friday, Everyone!
If anyone is wondering, it is monsoon season on Blueberry Hill! What wild, wet, windy weather we are having! Thank goodness for my trusty canoe :) If anyone wants to mount a rescue mission to bring in supplies of chocolate and friendly company, wear appropriate foul weather gear and do not attempt an umbrella - it will end in disaster :)
With rain on the brain, here's my pick for this week which also starts out in the rain :)
Apparently I am a one-person advertising agency for G.P. Putnam's Sons. This is the second week in a row I've posted one of their books! But I promise, it just worked out that way. I love both books and they're being offered as prizes in the Halloweensie Contest, so I wanted to make sure everyone got a chance to see how fantastic they are :)
Today's choice is the 3rd book in Karen Orloff and David Catrow's super-fun I Wanna series that began with I Wanna Iguana. I hope you like it :)
Title: I Wanna Go Home
Written By: Karen Kaufman Orloff
Illustrated By: David Catrow
G.P. Putnam's Sons, September 2014, Fiction
Suitable For Ages: 4-8
Themes/Topics: family (grandparents), appreciation, visiting relatives, persuasion, humor
Opening: "
Dear Alex, Ethan and Annie,We're so glad you're coming to visit us. You'll love it here! Do you know how to play bridge? It's a card game all our friends enjoy. When you come, we can play for hours and hours! Can't wait to see you.Love,Grandma Shirley and Grandpa RalphP.S. Hope you like broccoli lasagna!"
Brief Synopsis: From the Amazon review:
"Alex is not happy about being sent to his grandparents’ retirement community while his parents go on a fabulous vacation. What could be worse than tagging along to Grandma’s boring bridge game or enduring the sight of Grandpa’s dentures?But as the week goes on, Alex’s desperate emails to his parents turn into stories about ice cream before dinner and stickball with Grandpa. Before he knows it, Alex has made a surprising discovery: grandparents are way cooler than he thought!"
Links To Resources:
Classroom Activities for persuasive writing (this is actually for Karen's 2nd book,
I Wanna New Room, but much of it applies as is and the rest can be easily modified to match this book); talk about what kids do with their grandparents - what activities do grandparents like to do? Are they old-fashioned? What activities do kids like to do? Can you learn fun things from your grandparents? Can they learn fun things from you? What are some things you've learned how to do from your grandparents? What are some things you've taught them?
Why I Like This Book: Alex's letter-writing is always amusing. He's a master of showing his side of the argument and getting his way, (although in this case he changes his mind and learns that maybe visiting grandparents isn't all that bad.) Things begin badly at the Happy Hills Retirement Community. It's raining. Alex is bored. Grandma Shirley is dressing baby Annie up in girly outfits, and Grandpa's false teeth are disgusting! But as the days go by, Alex discovers square dancing, bingo, and stick ball, and realizes that his grandparents are pretty fun to hang out with. By the end, he doesn't want to go home. I love the way Alex's attitude turns around, because that happens so often in life - especially with kids. They think they're going to hate something and don't even want to give it a chance, and it turns out to be pretty amazing :) This book, like Karen's others, is filled with humor and believability and is just tons of fun from start to finish!
For the complete list of books with resources, please visit
Perfect Picture Books.
PPBF bloggers please be sure to leave your post-specific link in the list below so we can all come visit you and see your wonderful picks for this week!
And please remember that there will be no PPBF next week due (October 31!!!) to the fact that the Halloweensie Contest will be underway!!! So exciting! I can hardly wait until Monday... to see if anyone enters... anyone at all... I'm hoping for at least a few - your stories are always so creative and fun! (And no, I have not written my sample yet. But I still have a couple days. It could still happen... :))
Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!!! :)
Happy Perfect Picture Book Friday, Everyone!
I was certain this book had been reviewed already for PPBF, but when I went to find the link (so I could add it to the prize mention on the Halloweensie Contest) I couldn't find it anywhere! Is it possible that since it came out in July while we were on hiatus it never got reviewed? Or did I just not see it? Who knows?! But it's too good to miss, so enjoy! (And if someone already did it, you'd better give me the link! :))
Title: Ninja Red Riding Hood
Written By: Corey Rosen Schwartz
Illustrated By: Dan Santat
G.P. Putnam's Sons, July 2014, Fiction
Suitable For Ages: 4-8
Themes/Topics: fractured fairy tale, humor, girl power, language fun (rhyme)
Opening: "
Once upon a Ninja-filled time,a wolf couldn't catch any prey.He kept getting lickedby the dinner he pickedand was growing more ticked by the day."
Brief Synopsis: The big bad wolf, having taken a licking from the three nina pigs, decides to attend martial arts school and then see if he can snack on Little Red Riding Hood. But Red turns out to be way more than he bargained for!
Links To Resources:
Teacher Guide/Activity Pages; compare this version of RED with the traditional tale of Little Red Riding Hood, Little Red Writing, and any other versions you like (
this page lists quite a few!) - how are the stories alike? How are they different?
Why I Like This Book: For starters, I love fractured fairy tales, and this is such a clever one! The rhythm of the rhyme is terrific, and just begs to be read aloud. The story, complemented perfectly by the illustrations, is tons of fun. I love that Red has a few tricks up her sleeve and is well able to take care of herself - a great message for girls. Gran has a few surprises too. And the poor old wolf... you just have to feel a little sorry for him :)
Hopefully, here's the trailer (although my internet is currently being extremely uncooperative and refusing to show any videos, so we'll just have to see if this works or not!)
For the complete list of books with resources, please visit
Perfect Picture Books.
PPBF bloggers please be sure to leave your post-specific link in the list below so we can all come visit you!
Have a wonderful weekend everyone! I hope you're all thinking about and/or writing your Halloweensie stories! Personally, I am still in the thinking about stage :)
Fangbone! Third Grade Barbarian
By Michael Rex
G.P. Putnam’s Sons (an imprint of Penguin)
$5.99
ISBN: 978-0-399-25521-2
Ages 6-10
On shelves now
Michael Rex has made a career of sorts out of spoofing classic children’s books of yore. As such, Goodnight Moon becomes Goodnight Goon, Runaway Bunny is Runaway Mummy and Curious George is the stellar Furious George Goes Bananas. Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery but parody ain’t nothing to sneeze at. Now Mr. Rex switches gears a little. You can go on spoofing picture books until the cows come home but why limit yourself? If you’re going to rework a classic go big or go home. Go for the gold. Take on a classic in the best sense of the term. You don’t need to have read Conan the Barbarian to enjoy Mr. Rex’s new graphic novel series Fangbone! Third Grade Barbarian but knowing the books won’t hurt your appreciation either. Basically, if you’ve been waiting around for a series about third graders with swords and deadpan deliveries your prayers have been duly answered.
A warrior never shirks from danger, even if that warrior is just a kid. When the fate of the world (universe?) depends on Fangbone!, a pint-sized expert at arms, to take a supernatural object (a baddie’s big toe) to another dimension (our own) he literally leaps at the chance. Finding himself at Eastwood Elementary School he immediately attaches himself to a good-natured if slightly ADD kid named Bill and places himself in class 3G. There he begins his plan to defend the toe from supernatural baddies and to build an army. Neither task is easy, but with Bill at his side every step of the way Fangbone quickly becomes a force to reckon with in a world gone weird.
Recently small one-color graphic novels have been making a mint. The credit goes entirely to Babymouse, a series whose pink and black (sometimes orange and black, sometimes red and black) interiors changed the game. Sudden
I have been reading many, many picture books lately. Both for review and for a presentation that I am giving later this week. As a result, I have been thinking about picture books and tweens. There are many picture books that are perfectly suited for tweens...especially those with out of the ordinary non-fiction themes. Cromwell Dixon's Sky-Cycle is just one of those books.
Cromwell Dixon was a kid who loved to invent things. From a rowboat with extra oars, to a mechanical fish made out of clocks, Cromwell's imagination ran wild. He read all that he could about the inventions of the day, but he was especially captivated with the flying machines. Cromwell had been up in a hot air balloon in 1904 and by 1907, fourteen year old Cromwell decided that he wanted to be an aeronaut and began to build his own flying machine.
Now, many inventors have parents who do not support their passion, but Cromwell was very lucky. His mother supported him 100%. His design was based around his bicycle. He rebuilt it so that pedaling meant that propellers would turn and turning the handlebars would make the rudder in the back go left or right. Cromwell's mother sewed up a grand silk balloon that would support the bicycle and its rider!
A tragic set back would probably have made many teens give up, but Cromwell and his mother started sewing again, and he was convinced that his new design would be even better than the last.
Tweens will be captivated with this story about the original "balloon boy". Cromwell is an example of resilience embodied and his stick with it attitude is inspiring to us all. John Abbott Nez's illustrations perfectly set the tone of the time, and readers will pour over the details of the air ships and the blueprints. At the end, there is a mini-biography titled, "This is a True Story" that gives readers a bit more detail.
Why not consider some picture books for the tweens in your life?
It has been a annoyance to me that picture books seem to be almost nonexistent at the jr. high were I sub. Thank you for sharing this one.