Mo Willems' Pigeon series

Ok. So we've read a lot of Mo Willems' pigeon books.


But The Pigeon Wants a Puppy is my favorite to date. Why? Pigeon says all the right things when it comes to wanting (but not understanding what it means to have) a puppy. And then when he encounters one....it's super.

Added bonus: what he wants next.

A Birthday for Cow by Jan Thomas

A Birthday Cake for Cow cracked us all up. Though the illustrations are a bit on the quirky, cartoon side (not my fav), we loved this take of friends making a cake.  At every step Duck pipes up with his idea of what cow would like. The others look at him like he's crazy (and the way I read his voice, so did my kids) but that didn't stop Duck. He's pretty sure he knows what cow wants and so persists until the end--with hilarious results.

The Wolf Who Cried Boy by Bob Hartman

My four year old pulled this off our designated library book shelf and cried, "This one's cool!"

We hadn't read it yet, but he was right. Hartman puts a new spin on the old tale of the shepherd boy who cries wolf, making the star tale-teller a little wolf who just wants to eat boy. "Why can't we have boy?" he whines, not wanting three-pig salad for dinner again. His parents tell him if he ever sees a boy, they'll catch it for him and they'll have boy for dinner. Thus begins a series of false sightings that ends like we all know it will: one day he really does see a boy and his parents think it's just another of his lies.

The Z Was Zapped by Chris Van Allsburg

My mom was a kindergarten teacher for years and she cleverly used this book as a reader's theater play, with each child holding up their assigned letter picture and reading the words on the back. Each black and white picture shows a letter in the process of some like-lettered verb. The K was kidnapped, the B was badly bitten, the N was nailed and nailed again.

I've encountered a lot of alphabet books that are bad attempts at being clever, but miss the mark with confusing images or overwhelming ideas. Van Allsburg's easy to understand pictures speak for themselves and encourage pre-reading. After one reading children will remember right away when they see the picture that the Z was zapped!

Lemons Are Not Red by Laura Vaccaro Seeger

I've read a number of 'color' books. The ones where they use either 1) a storyline or 2) no storyline to teach colors to young children. Nothing seemed to help my youngest get interested in colors...until this book. 

Lemons are Not Red uses the classic 'give them the wrong info and let them choose the right info' tactic. Look at the title.

"Lemons are not red. Lemns are yellow. Apples are red."

Nothing radical, right? But the way the book is put together, children see through cut-outs at a red lemon; Then turn the page and the lemon is now yellow, with a correctly colored apple on the opposing side.

Pssst! by Adam Rex

I read Pssst! for the first time today and had to post.

Part comic book, part prose, completely funny. A young girl goes to the zoo and is enlisted by a variety of animals to get them items they desire. The penguins want paint, the sloths want bicycle helmets. Why? she asks them all. Each creature is able to answer with a seemingly logical response.

I found the choices Rex made both visually and with typesetting a treat, aiding in the out-loud reading of this book. (Think: words covered in ice for the penguins and a bright Hola! from the javelina). My almost five-year old asked for it to be read again immediately.