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Oh wait, wait, wait, am I cut off? So many other favorites!

The Discovery Children’s Museum is hosting the “Storyland: A Trip Through Childhood Favorites” traveling exhibit.

According to the museum’s website, the curators created seven “three dimensional, bi-lingual (English and Spanish) play and learning environments that highlight the six pre-reading skills.” The Public Library Association and the Association for Library Service to Children (a division of the American Library Association) define those skills as “disposition to read, print awareness, letter knowledge, sound awareness, vocabulary, and narrative skills and comprehension.”

They drew inspiration from the following titles: The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter, The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats, Where’s Spot? by Eric Hill, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Numeroff, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr. & John Archambault, Abuela by Arthur Dorros, and Tuesday by David Wiesner. The closing date for this exhibition has been scheduled for January 04, 2015.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

From the creators of BROWN BEAR, BROWN BEAR, WHAT DO YOU SEE?, this colorful board book will delight fans and garner new ones. With bright, fascinating pictures and exciting slide flaps that reveal animal drawings, this book entrances young readers.

#38 Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin Jr., illustrated by Eric Carle (1967)
46 points

The lilting rhythm of this book is so soothing and familiar, and Eric Carle’s art is classic. Love the colors, love the animals, love the familiarity. – Amy Johnson

It is a preschool icon. – Angela Reynolds

If you are ever lucky enough to visit the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, do be so good as to see whether or not they have an exhibit on Eric Carle’s work going at that particular moment (the odds are good).  When I visited roughly a year ago there was a simply lovely exhibit at the time (The Art of Eric Carle: Bears and Beyond) that discussed Brown Bear, Brown Bear at length.  I guess I’d always been under the impression that the Brown Bear you buy in the bookstores today looks exactly like the original Brown Bear as it was originally conceived in Eric Carle’s shiny brain.  Not the case.  Brown Bear has seen many incarnations over the years, all of them created by Carle’s guiding hand.  Here are two:

This makes particular sense when you discover that Brown Bear was Carle’s debut.

The description of the book from the publisher reads: “A big happy frog, a plump purple cat, a handsome blue horse, and a soft yellow duck– all parade across the pages of this delightful book. Children will immediately respond to Eric Carle’s flat, boldly colored collages. Combined with Bill Martin’s singsong text, they create unforgettable images of these endearing animals.”

I was not read Brown Bear as a child.  Honestly, I don’t remember it existing at all.  The Very Hungry Caterpillar was the known Carle in my part of the woods.  So when I became an adult, Brown Bear was introduced to me as a children’s librarian and as an adult.  I should note, however, that it is my readaloud staple.  Sing it to them to the Baa Baa Black Sheep / Alphabet Song tune and watch their little mouths grow quiet and their little bodies sway in time to the music.

School Library Journal made special note of some of the illustrations’ updates in its review: “In this new edition of the popular classic (Holt, 1983), the same clean design and crisp text remain. Illustrations, however, have been slightly altered. Stronger colors and more texture help delineate animal bodies more sharply. Positions and shapes are slightly changed, resulting in a less static look. Red Bird is shown in flying position with a sleeker body, sharper beak, and more carefully defined tail and wing features. Yellow Duck has webbed feet and an open bill; Blue Horse has black hooves and teeth showing; Green Frog a spotted back and pink tongue; the former Mother with pale pink skin has become Teacher with beige skin tones and darker hair. The overall effect is livelier and more interesting, although changes are minimal enough that the old edition is still serviceable. When replacements are in order, this will be a welcome addition.”

Fun Note:  Did you know that Bill Martin Jr. wrote a Christian version of this book called Adam, Adam What Do You See?  Nor I

thanks to Alicia Padron

What better book to choose during Earth Week than one telling us all the different ways in which to love our planet. A beautiful poem and fabulous photographs, along with a great message have made this book a true winner.

I Love Our Earth, written by the wonderful Bill Martin Jr. and Michael Sampson with photographs by Dan Lipow. A very simple concept makes a huge impact in this perfect Earth Day title. Photographs of wondrous places on our planet, along with a snapshot of a child from those places accompany a poem as to why we love the Earth as we do. Some reasons are very simple (warm sunsets), some very grand (gray mountains rising).

The photography is beautiful (and what child doesn't like looking at photos of other kids?) and the text is so simple, yet puts across a great message. We should really love our Earth for everything it gives us, big or small.

A great choice for libraries!

I Love Our Earth
Bill Martin Jr. and Michael Sampson
32 pages
Picture book
Charlesbridge Publishing
9781580891066
February 2006

HenryHolt Videos at YouTube (thanks to We Heart Books and Fuse #8)

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin, Jr. and Eric Carle

Reading level: Baby-Preschool
Board book: 32 pages
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR); Brdbk edition (September 15, 1996)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0805047905
ISBN-13: 978-0805047905


For this week's Baby/Toddler/Preschool selection, I'm bringing you a favorite in our house. Well, anything by Eric Carle seems to be a favorite in our house. My daughter is fascinated by his colorful tissue paper collages and loves to touch (smack) the illustrations.

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? features full spreads of colorful animals with the repetitive text:

"Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? I see a red bird looking at me.
Red Bird, Red Bird, What Do You See? I see a yellow duck looking at me."

It never pays to disappear into the great big off-web world for months on end. As a result, I managed to miss presenting at an internet conference this year. "How did this happen?" you might ask. "Madeline is generally a responsible individual." And that is normally true. However, I wrote down the last day of the conference as the first day, and then didn't catch the email that would have told me otherwise. You see, a robot (or twenty) found the email link on the side of this page and has been sending spam to others using my address. I get inundated with return to sender emails for emails I didn't send. These are not caught by the spam blocker, and there's no good way to search them out. I have to manually delete them, and I accidentally lose other content in the process. My solution is to change email addresses, and only occasionally check the one I have listed on the side. If you need to chat with me, still use that email, and I'll respond to you using the new good one. It's the best idea I could come up with. I am open to others.

As for what conference I missed, yes it was the Muse 2007 one. I got on the board today, and it looked like it had been very well organized and well run. I'm very sad I missed it. I encourage everyone to attend next years. The folks there do an excellent job. I have posted my lesson up there today, but I fear it may be to late. If anyone is dying to see my lecture on what to look for when critiquing, and the board has already gone down, then email me at the bad address, and I'll send you the lecture from the good one.

I can't believe I did that. Shame. Shame.

In other news, I changed bookstores, got promoted at both jobs, and no longer seem to be able to sleep for the 8-12 hours a night I need. I spend a lot of time staring at the ceiling trying to sleep instead of being more productive. It has made me grumpy, and apparently forgetful. Ah, life.