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If you liked the sound of Rapido’s Next Stop, the latest book from Jean-Luc Fromental and Joëlle Jolivet, you can now try your luck at winning a copy!

Thanks to the publishers I have one copy to give away, and the great news is that this giveaway is open worldwide.

If you’d like to enter this giveaway please leave a comment on this post.

If you’d like extra entries to this giveaway you can do any of the following:

Make sure you leave an extra comment for each entry

Best of luck!

By Bianca Schulze, The Children’s Book Review
Published: May 31, 2011

5 Reasons Books Make the Best End of Year Teacher Gifts

1. There is a book out there for everybody and every interest
2. A book is a personal and thoughtful gift
3. They are affordable (especially if your child has multiple teachers)
4. They are easy to wrap
5. No batteries required

The Art of Selecting the Right Book

A few things to consider when choosing the perfect gift book…

1. Are you selecting a book for the teacher or his/her classroom?
2. Will the subject or topic interest the teacher or class?
3. Is the book age-appropriate?
4. Check out the latest offerings from your favorite author or illustrator.
5. Read book reviews.
6. Ask your local bookseller or librarian to make some suggestions.

And … if all else fails, there is always the trusty bookstore gift card!

4 Picture Book Suggestions for the Teacher’s Classroom

Poindexter Makes a Friend

By Mike Twohy

This is a great choice for any classroom and especially a reading teacher. It makes for a lovely reminder of how much the children grow emotionally and socially within one year and will also be a great read for the teacher’s new class next school year. Bonus if your teacher’s name happens to be Poindexter!

Publisher’s synopsis: Poindexter is a shy, friendly, and perfectly happy pig. There’s just one thing. How is a shy, nice, well balanced pig going to make friends? You never know who you will meet when you check out How to Make Friends at the library!

Add this book to your collection: Poindexter Makes a Friend

Iggy Peck, Architect

By Andrea Beaty (Author), David Roberts
(Illustrator)

Looking for a book for the art teacher? This is a very entertaining book about doing your own thing and remaining in touch with your creativity and passion. Imaginative and very clever!

Publisher’s synopsis: Meet Iggy Peck—creative, independent, and not afraid to express himself! In the spirit of David Shannon’s No, David and Rosemary Wells’s Noisy Nora, Iggy Peck will delight readers looking for irreverent, inspired fun.

Iggy has one passion: building. His parents are proud of his fabulous creations, though they’re sometimes surprised by his materials—who could forget the tower he built of dirty diapers? When his second-grade teacher declares her dislike of architecture, Iggy faces a challenge. He loves building too much to give it up! With Andrea Beaty’s irresistible rhyming text and David Roberts’s puckish illustrations, this book will charm creative kids everywhere, and amuse their sometimes bewildered parents.

Add this book to your collection:

By Jean-Luc Fromental and Joelle Jolivet,

Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2006

$17.95, ages 4-8, 48 pages

Bold graphics of penguins accumulating in the house of a family of four highlight this unique book about one scientist's offbeat solution to helping penguins relocate from the South Pole.

In this large-format book, the family gets a package in the mail every day of the year containing a penguin and tries to figure out how to keep them all happy, healthy and organized.

First the family tries arranging them in file cabinets, then stacking them into a cube until the four become so overwhelmed that they begin to live penguin, think penguin and become penguin.

Finally after a year, Uncle Victor, the ecologist, shows up in his parka and Birkenstocks to explain the mystery and trucks all but one of the penguins (a total of 364) to the North Pole.

But now that family life is returning to normal, what's this big, new package at the front door?

Best Parts: Jolivet's images, all in black, white, orange and blue, pull you into the mounting chaos, as an unprepared family tries to keep track of a fast-growing colony of endangered birds which they know very little about.

I loved the absurdity of the father trying to stack 216 penguins into a cube shape and thinking he could file them away into a cabinet, and how excited my 7-year-old son got every time the family tried to figure out how many penguins they'd organized into a cube or drawers.

Fromental poses a multiplication problem for the reader to figure out, then hides the answer upside down at the bottom of the page. Adding to the fun, readers are invited find a blue-footed penguin tucked in among the flock.

Uncle Victor's imaginative, yet dubious scheme to save penguins shows how difficult it is to help threatened species and how desperate the situation can become.

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