Little Pea is one of those books. It’s a book that’s meant to be read aloud to toddlers through first-grade students. The text is simple. The illustrations are cute, very detailed in a cartoon fashion, and relentlessly happy. With great read-aloud books, the magic happens when you read it and combine everything together. That’s what happens when you read Little Pea to children.
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Ask a kid to learn and they’ll try to weasel out of it. How Do Meerkats Order Pizza?, well, the answer to that is something that I must find out, those same kids will say. This is non-fiction, graphic novel, reference book greatness that puts the fun first, but ensures that you’ll learn something too.
If you’re looking for a sign, this is it. I use that sometimes when I teach. I’ll write “Sign” on the board, and put a border around it, then stake it as if it’s posted in the ground. When Things Aren’t Going Right, Go Left is an illustrated book that is rife with metaphors, double-meaning words and positive vibes. It’s an unlikely book that’s an empowering take on how young school-aged children can overcome anything just by thinking in a more positive manner. The book also tackles an angle that elementary students aren’t told enough, and that’s the fact that everybody has something. And that you and your something are OK if you put it down for a bit and give it a rest.
I was talking to a student one day about the approximate distance between Georgia and New York and they had absolutely no clue. Their spatial abilities were suspect at best with them guessing at only a couple of hundred miles to multiple thousands. Space is like that too, except so much more interesting and potentially complex. The Planets Are Very, Very, Very Far Away puts the impossibly massive scale of the solar system into a scope that anyone is able to understand. Author Mike Vago is an author who produces books that are as much of a publishing statement as they are informative, entertaining, or both.
The cover to Best Shot in the West looks like a promotional poster for a rodeo or a cowboy recruitment drive. Come join us, see the west, rope horses, and let the only boundaries for what you can become only be limited by your abilities, getting trampled by steer or disease. That was the modus operandi in the late 1800s for those who wanted independence, adventure, or financial freedom back and the superstars who opted for the first two had great nicknames. Nat Love had a great name from the get-go, but his cowboy nomenclature was equally as great, Deadwood Dick.
Kids can smell a bad allegory like expired meat that’s been left in the trashcan for three days. King Kong’s Cousin is an illustrated book that’s ripe with allegory but doesn’t have the stench of week-old room-temperature meat. The book will indirectly resonate with those kids that have older siblings, but in reality, any pre-k through middle elementary school reader will grin at the silliness that lies within the book’s big monkey spine.
Retro, by Sofia Lapuente and New York Times-bestselling author Jarrod Shusterman is an unlikely candidate for the cat video and potato chip challenge. That’s our internal and highly unscientific procedure for reviewing things. Essentially, if you’re able to partake in said thing and are able to read, or do it only one time, then it would fail the potato chip challenge. This is a case where Retro passes the challenge that’s normally reserved for illustrated books and collections of comic strips, in addition to potato chips and cat videos. Just try to watch only one cat video, and you’ll fail quickly, much like trying to read only one chapter from Retro.
Folk stories shouldn’t have an age ceiling. Most of the folk tales that I’ve encountered have enough details in them to merit a feature-length movie. The really great ones can also be distilled into simple stories that are short enough, in that package, to be enjoyed by young audiences. How the Stars Came to Be Deluxe Edition, is an illustrated fable book that feels like it belongs in your hand. It’s a beautifully illustrated book whose regal impression is felt from the moment that you lay eyes on it. The front and back of the book have gold inlays where some of the stars in the sky are, in addition to the main character’s jewels and hair.
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