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I’ve fallen behind with the reading logs again—it’s inevitable that I will, from time to time—but I can report that my Rilla-read-aloud time has taken a leap forward into snuggling in with long, text-heavy books of the sort she wasn’t terribly interested in a month or two ago. Brambly Hedge, crammed with all those detailed, pore-overable drawings, hooked her on tales of small, industrious, quaintly dressed animals with British accents (she was already a Potter fan); we’re now well into Tumtum and Nutmeg, and she hasn’t seemed to notice or mind that there are far fewer illustrations, and only black-and-white, at that. There are bustling, clever mice and I get to unleash my best Monty Python impressions on the dialogue. (Tumtum is Michael Palin, of course, and who else is Baron Toymouse but Cleese’s Black Night? My Nutmeg, on the other hand, seems to want to be the cook from the current Upstairs, Downstairs series.)

As for picture books, recent hits with my younger three include:

Rachel Fister’s Blister by Amy MacDonald, art by Marjorie Priceman.

Rachel Fister has a blister, and everyone around her has a cure. Silly, satisfying rhyming text; Rilla in particular enjoys this kind of linguistic fun.

Good New, Bad News by Jeff Mack.

This one’s a great pick for the 3-6-year-old set, all ye aunties and uncles and godparents out there. A rabbit and a mouse and a picnic gone bad. No, good! No, bad! No, good…The kind of bright, bold, funny drawings my littles are especially drawn to, and unpredictable twists within a highly predictable (ergo comfortable and appealing to preschoolers) structure.

It’s a Tiger! by David LaRochelle, illustrated by the wonderful Jeremy Tankard.

You know how much we love Tankard’s work. Gorgeous coloring in this book and so much humor and excitement in the drawings. I love that heavy outline on the tiger; Jeremy was an inspired choice to illustrate this particular book. It’s a rollicking jungle adventure of the best kind, with a suitably ferocious tiger lurking in all sorts of unexpected places, and a kind of “We’re going on a bear hunt” vibe to the text. Huck loves it, and not just because you get to shout “IT’S A TIGER! RUN!” every few pages.

Curious City just finished up a website for author Amy MacDonald. Having just released, Too Much Flapdoodle that includes the same line up of eccentric characters as her chapter books, No More Nice and No More Nasty, we decided to create a greater "series presence" for her books.

As the third book did not follow the naming mechanism of "No More..." we created a themed website based on the character's names and quirks.

As the books deal with the formerly straight-laced boys, Simon and Parker spending time with their wacky luddite Maine relatives, we decided that the site would be built by and authored by Simon and Parker. The boys launched "Mattie and Philbert's World" to pass on the Un-Lessons handed down to them by their great aunt and uncle.

The site intentionally includes lots of PDF Downloads to provide materials for classroom, homeschool, and young reader use. They include everything from multiplication tricks to how to play songs with your armpits.

Also in support of Too Much Flapdoodle, we helped Amy create a character blog for Parker to pass on the luddite oddities of his summer with Aunt Mattie and Uncle Philbert --like how to build a turtle trap.