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This month's best selling kids series from The Children's Book Review's affiliate store, Pete the Cat, is great for highlighting a glass-half-full outlook.

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This month's best selling kids series from The Children's Book Review's affiliate store is great for highlighting a glass-half-full outlook.

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Our best selling picture book for the past month is Herve Tullet's completely awesome Press Here (Chronicle Books, 2011). As per usual, we've shared our hand selected list of the most popular picture books from the nationwide best selling picture books, as listed by The New York Times

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Need a little dose of positivity and acceptance today? We’re here to help you out!

Watch this trailer for PETE THE CAT AND THE NEW GUY, which is on sale today. We guarantee it’ll make you feel groovy!

And here’s another little bit of grooviness to take with you into the coming school year: a Common Core-aligned teaching guide to all of Pete the Cat’s picture books and I Can Read titles!

“Keep walking along and singing your song. Because it’s all good.”

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The New York Times bestselling "Pete the Cat" picture book series tops The Children's Book Review's best selling kids series list. And the list of hand-selected series from the nationwide best selling Children's Series list, as noted by The New York Times, features the same popular dystopian thriller series as last month from the likes of Veronica Roth and Suzanne Collins, the adventurous Heroes of Olympus series by Rick Riordan, and the relatable Diary of a Wimpy Kid books by Jeff Kinney.

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Glitch (The Aldo Zelnick Comic Novel Series)
by Karla Oceanak
illustrated by Kendra Spanjer
Bailiwick Press, 2012
review copy provided by the publisher

There's definitely more than a little GLITCH in Aldo's plan to get more presents for Christmas this year!




Pete the Cat Saves Christmas
created and illustrated by James Dean
story by Eric Litwin
Harper, 2012
review copy provided by the publisher

In this take-off of The Night Before Christmas, Pete the Cat leaves the beach where we left him in his Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons, and steps in for a sick Santa to save Christmas.




It's Christmas! (I Can Read Book 3)
by Jack Prelutsky
illustrated by Marylin Hafner
Greenwillow Books, 2012
review copy provided by the publisher

A dozen very accessible poems cover Christmas from the decorating to the present of a sled in a year with no snow.




Adventures in Cartooning: Christmas Special
by James Sturm, Andrew Arnold, and Alexis Frederick-Frost
First Second, 2012
review copy provided by the publisher

Santa's nostalgic for the olden days when kids got toys for Christmas instead of electronics. With the help of the dragon and the knight from the first book, Santa delivers a book to all the children that makes them want to turn off their screens and draw comics...and of course, that is the book you just read!

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I posted a picture of some of these on Facebook and Instagram this week and it was fun to see the varied responses. From publishers and families alike. So I thought I'd start sharing pictures of our library loot.

This is actually a very small pile for us. We're getting back to our routine of one to two visits a week - our small town library (North Hampton, NH) and the larger city library (Portsmouth, NH) nearby. It's one of the best resources for so many communities: stay-at-home-moms (hello!), students, and overall picture book junkies like all of us.

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#20 Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes by Eric Litwin, illustrated by James Dean (2010)
68 points

Once the song is downloaded and played, it will never leave your head! Catchy in a good way. Also, it teaches an important lesson to “not sweat the small stuff.” Great for kids and adults alike. – Gina Detate

Do not be fooled by the simplicity of this little picture book. As with Mo Willems’ Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus, there is more here than meets the eye; there is genius in the pages.

Here is my Tip-slash-Promise: If you will teach your little ones two things before you start reading, you will have an instant-favorite on your hands.
1] Teach them to say, with enthusiasm, of course, “”Goodness, no!”"
2] Teach them the song Pete sings. You can see a video of the author himself reading this book with kids at PetetheCat.com. Super-simple to learn and sing. Kids lovelovelove it.

One of my favorite things about Pete the Cat is the moral of the story, which speaks to adults more than it does to kids. Winner.

Warning: You will find yourself singing, at odd times of the day, “I love my white shoes, I love my white shoes, I love my white shoes….” – Kristi Hazelrigg

And THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is how you create a serious upset! A show of hands from all of you who saw this one coming. A few? Well done then. Though aware of Pete’s popularity I had mentally relegated him to that genre of popular picture books that get a lot of attention then fade slowly into the mist. I had not counted on Pete’s ability to attract not only the masses but the gatekeepers as well.

The plot according to SLJ reads, “Pete the Cat strolls down the street singing, ‘I love my white shoes, I love my white shoes, I love my white shoes.’ Then he steps in (actually climbs up) a huge hill of strawberries that turn his pristine sneakers red. ‘Did Pete cry? Goodness, no! He kept walking along and singing his song. I love my red shoes….’ He proceeds to step in a mound of blueberries and then a mud puddle, each incident changing his sneakers to a new hue (the colors never blend). Unsmiling but placid, Pete takes it all in stride. After stepping into a ‘bucket’—more like a tub—of water, he notices that his sneakers are not only white again, but also wet.”

The story behind the book is one of those once in a blue moon success stories.  Artist James Dean started out as an electrical engineer, actually.  After quitting his job to paint full time he adopted a small black cat, named it Pete, and started painting it with blue fur.  The real Pete took off for parts unknown but James kept painting him.  That’s when Eric saw the paintings around town (the town in question being Atlanta) and started writing songs about him.  Eventually the two men collaborated and voila.  Instant picture book.  The original Pete picture book was published by the author and illustrator in 2008 by their own Blue Whisker Press.  Two years later Harper Collins snapped him up and wasted no time in introducing him to the wider world.

Of course the flipside of this book being the massive success that it is is that now publishers are far more open to finding and publishing self-published picture books.  The successful ones that already have a following, anyway.  And because Pete is such a 21st century hep cat, I suspect that his rise has as much to do with his YouTube video as the book itself.  Can another picture book say the same?  I think not.

• Want some Pete art of your own?  Find it
  0 Comments on Top 100 Picture Books #20: Pete the Cat – I Love My White Shoes by Eric Litwin, illustrated by James Dean as of 1/1/1900
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I checked on my YouTube comments today and found a message from one Mr. Eric Litwin... author of Pete The Cat. It wasn't for me though, it was for Leah!

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WARNING: Be prepared to have this song in your head all day!  Especially after using it in a storytime!

See what librarians and teachers are saying about PETE THE CAT: ROCKING IN MY SCHOOL SHOES by Eric Litwin and James Dean:

“The text invites students to sing along with Pete as he rocks in his new school shoes. It also invites them to jump in with the place in the school where Pete is doing whatever it is he is doing. A perfect book for young children at the beginning of the school year. So many possibilities!” ~ A Year of Reading

“This book is a perfect fit for preschoolers through early elementary, and potentially as fun for the reader as the listener (I suggest belting out Pete’s song right along with him in your jazziest voice!).  It might be a comfort to kids who are experiencing first-day jitters, as Pete’s sense of calm and cool is a tad infectious.  And just like this cat, school IS cool, after all!  My grade for Pete, the coolest cat around?  A+.” ~ Book Talk (King County Library System)

“PETE THE CAT: ROCKING IN MY SCHOOL SHOES is the perfect back-to-school story for preschoolers through first graders. You better believe you’ll hear enthusiastic singing and clapping coming from my school library.” ~ Watch. Connect. Read (Mr. Schu)

PETE THE CAT: ROCKING IN MY SCHOOL SHOES
by Eric Litwin and James Dean
Available now

ISBN  9780061910241

Check out the website!

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I know that, for some of you librarians, it feels like summer (and summer reading) will never end.  But I was visiting my family in California recently and my sister-in-law mentioned that my niece is starting school on August 10th!  August 10th!  That seems so early, doesn’t it?  Here in NYC, the public schools don’t start until after Labor Day.  What about your part of the country?  When does school start?

With school starting just around the corner, here are some new books to consider adding to your library to refresh and update your collections:

KINDERGATORS: HANDS OFF, HARRY! by Rosemary Wells
This is an excellent picture book recommendation for kids with personal space issues.

AMELIA BEDELIA’S FIRST FIELD TRIP by Herman Parish, illustrated by Lynne Avril
Take a look at activity ideas for your classroom and library.

PETE THE CAT: ROCKING IN MY SCHOOL SHOES by Eric Litwin, illustrated by James Dean
It begs to be sung out loud – check out the video!  You can also download activities.

And for those of you librarians with another couple weeks of summer reading, hang in there!

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