If You Give a Mouse a Cookie

By Laura Joffe Numeroff and Illustrated by Felicia Bond

NY Times Bestseller List

What will happen if you give a mouse a cookie? You will be as worn out as the young, well-intentioned boy in this popular picture book. He begins by giving the mouse the cookie, and of course, the mouse then wants a glass of milk, then a straw, then a napkin, ….you get the idea.

Felicia Bond’s illustrations add to the characters’ appeal. The little mouse is wearing overalls and is a very animated character. The drawn details in each of the scenes gives the story depth and keeps the story interesting.

Numeroff, L. J. (1985). If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. New York, NY: Harper Collins Publishers.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

By Eric Carle

NY Times Bestseller

The Very Hungry Caterpillar was first published in 1969 and is still a favorite for children of all ages. This very simple story of the life cycle of a butterfly starts with, “In the light of the moon a little egg lay on a leaf.” From the egg comes the caterpillar who eats and eats and eats, then builds his cocoon and from there becomes a beautiful butterfly.

The colorful illustrations are engaging, bright, and composed in a manner that allows the reader to witness the caterpillar’s transformation up close. It is truly amazing that this book has continued to be endeared by children for four decades.

Carle, E. (2009). The Very Hungry Caterpillar. New York, NY: Philomel Books.

Pictures of Hollis Woods

by Patricia Reilly Giff

Newbery Award Winner

Hollis Woods is a 12-year old girl who has been in the foster care system all of her life. She is smart and a talented artist and makes sense of her life with her drawings. She desperately wants to be part of a family who loves her, but that dream seems very far out of her grasp. 

Hollis arrives at the home of a woman named Josie, a retired art teacher. Josie is a free spirit, but beginning to forget things and be more absent-minded. We begin to see that Josie needs Hollis as much or more than Hollis needs her. 

Throughout the story, Hollis remembers the Regan family who is the closest she had ever been to having a real family, but Hollis’s stay with them ended with something bad happening and as the story with Josie unfolds, so does the story of the Regans.

Hollis’s past life with the Regans and her life with Josie converge as she tries to protect Josie and herself. It seems a kind of redemption that by doing what she can to save Josie, she finally gets what she has always wanted.

Literary Qualities – Understatement – When Hollis first meets Josie, she says, “I couldn’t take my eyes off her. I could feel a pencil in my hand, moving across the paper, drawing her face, her eyes, the knife.”  The reader immediately understands how Hollis is drawn to Josie by the sense of urgency she has to draw her.

We also get unexpected insights from the book. It is really by wanting to help Josie that Hollis is able to find her way and help her dream of being a part of a family come true.

Giff, P. R. (2004). Pictures of Hollis Woods. New York, NY: Random House.

Where's Waldo?

by Martin Handford

Challenged Children's Book

Waldo likes to get around and can be spotted in various locations in the Where’s Waldo? series.  Waldo, always dressed in a conspicuous red and white striped shirt, red and white winter cap, jeans, and black-framed glasses, visits many places, such as a museum, campsite, city, and the beach. Each scene in the book is very detailed and animated and it’s fun looking for Waldo on the double-paged spread of organized chaos that is the standard in these books.

Sounds innocent enough. And the Waldo books have been  well-loved for years. So why does Walso make the list of Challenged Children’s Books?

In the first Waldo book, 1987 edition, in the beach scene, one of the hundreds of characters on this very crowded beach is a topless sunbathing woman who exposes her bare breasts when a boy appears to throw sand on her back. 

Waldo is not anywhere near the topless woman, but the scene was considered inappropriate so that the book was actually banned in many schools and libraries.

Subsequent editions of the book showed the woman with her top on.

Handford, M. (1987). Where’s Waldo? London, UK: Little Brown & Co.

The Dreamer

by Pam Munoz Ryan and Peter Sis Pura Belpre Award Book The Dreamer is a work of fiction based on the childhood of poet Pablo Neruda. The book opens with young Neftali Reyes at home in bed, daydreaming and wishing he could be outside but settles for having his sister describe what she sees through the window. Neftali’s mother died when he was only two months old and his father is overbearing and cruel. When his father finds him out of bed, he admonishes him saying, “Do you want to be a skinny weakling forever and amount to nothing?…Your mother was the same, scribbling on bits of paper, her mind always in another world.”  Neftali’s father wants him to be a strong boy and to study hard so that he can be a doctor some day, but Neftali has no desire for any of that and is intrigued by words and the beauty of the world around him. Neftali loves exploring and collecting his findings, like rocks, pinecones, feathers, or anything that he finds interesting and he writes interesting words and ideas in a notebook that he hides from his father who has no patience or tolerance for such things. As Neftali grows older, he discovers his voice in his writing and learns that it will take courage for him to write, in part, because he risks further alienation from his father. He also witnesses firsthand the danger of taking an unpopular political stance.  In order to save his father "the humiliation of having a son who was a poet", Neftali created his new name, Pablo Neruda. The rest, as they say, is history. Pablo Neruda followed his dreams and his essays and poems were published and read all over the world. Literary qualities – The author uses personification throughout the book as a way of connecting Neftali to the world around him, such as when Neftali explored the forest and “came upon a towering pine in a small clearing. He looked up and wondered what it had seen from its branches. Did it hide all the secrets of the forest within its dark nooks? Did it know, too, what Neftali would become?” (p. 107). Precise vocabulary – some examples, “He scoured the ground…” (p. 107), “The wind whipped their hair.” (p. 159). “ … glancing up to avoid the scattered laundry of autumn leaves on the bank.” (p. 241) Ryan, P. M. and Sis, P. (2010). The Dreamer. New York, NY: Scholastic Press.

Help Me, Mr. Mutt!

By Janet Stevens and Susan Stevens Crummel
Bluebonnet Award Winner

As the title suggests, Mr. Mutt is a canine counselor who helps dogs with people problems. The book is a series of letters from troubled dogs seeking Mr. Mutt’s advice on how to handle various people problems  from “Famished in Florida” who complains about being put on a diet to “Washed Up in Washington” who complains about getting too many baths.

Mr. Mutt advises “Famished in Florida”, “Dogs require at least eight servings per day of scrumptious food. Your people do not understand this, so you have to take matter into your own paws.”

The book’s illustrations add a great deal to the story by characterizing dogs in true canine sweetness, such as a drawing of a dog with his head in the toilet next to Mr. Mutt’s advise to “Famished”, “Finish off your gourmet meal with a good drink of water.”

This book is a fun read for everyone, but especially for dog lovers. Mr. Mutt and his distressed friends are very cute and very clever.

Stevens, J. , & Crummel, S. S. (2008). Help Me, Mr. Mutt!: Expert Answers for Dogs with People Problems. New York, NY: Harcourt, Inc.

The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963

by Christopher Paul Curtis

Coretta Scott King Award Winner

The main character and narrator of the story is Kenny, the middle child of a middle class family in Flint, MI.  Kenny has a lazy eye and is bullied at school.

Kenny’s older brother, Byron, who also bullies Kenny, starts skipping school and becoming defiant towards his parents in other ways, such as playing with matches and getting a “conk” haircut against his parents’ wishes.

Kenny’s parents decide to have him stay with his Grandma Sands in Birmingham, AL. With careful planning, the family begins the trip to Birmingham. They arrive right in the heat of racial conflicts in Birmingham.

One Sunday morning, Kenny expects his sister has attended the Sunday school where a bomb has gone off.  He goes to the church to find his sister and thinks she was blown up. He is in a trance, physically and emotionally altered by the event.

When he goes home his sister is at the door and Kenny thinks he is seeing a ghost. The Watsons return to Michigan, all of them deeply affected by what they experienced in Birmingham.

Literary Qualities – The climactic event in the novel is the church bombing that takes place in Alabama when the Watsons are there. Placing Kenny’s very likable sister as a possible victim in the bombing, an actual historical event, provides an extra sense of outrage and loss for the reader. Kenny’s profound reaction to the event is made more real for the reader as a result of these events.

Curtis, C. (1995). The Watsons Go to Birmingham – 1963. New York, NY: Delacorte Books for Young Readers.

Criss Cross

by Lynne Ray Perkins

Newberry Award Winner

This chapter book does not follow traditional plot sequences. The story begins with one of the main character's, Debbie’s, thoughts, “…I wish something different would happen. Something good. To me.” And the story proceeds to monitor the happenings of Debbie and some of her friends (all teenagers), who also seem to be waiting for something good to happen to them. Criss Cross details the characters’ reflections on life and their place in the world, interactions with parents, what is said and what might be said but isn’t, longing for love and affection. The criss cross happens in the story with the characters’ interactions and a necklace that starts with Debbie in Chapter One and makes its way to several other characters in the story, until finally ending where it began. The book is lightly illustrated and the illustrations add to the storytelling. 

The beauty of the novel is the expert way the author describes the musings of the characters. Written in third-person, Hector, one of the main characters “...waved to a couple of girls he knew…They were changing from caterpillars into butterflies. Hector felt himself changing, too, but into what? Not a buttefly.”

Literary Qualities - The use of dialogue throughout the novel sounds true and authentic. Perkins’ way of telling parallel stories and then bringing them all together by connecting the characters at various times throughout the novel gives a feeling of same time, different channel, a kind of "meanwhile...back at the ranch" feeling. In fact, Chapter 25 is entitled, “Meanwhile”.

Perkins, L. (2005). Criss Cross. New York, NY: Greenwillow Books.

Twilight

by Stephanie Meyer

Seventeen year old Bella Swan moves from Phoenix to small town Forks, WA to live with her father. Although it is her choice to move, she does not like the darkness and gloominess of Forks.

Forks is a small town and Bella’s father, Charlie, is the sheriff, so everyone knows about her. She tries to acclimate to her new home and school and soon finds herself falling in love with a strange boy named Edward Cullen, who turns out to be a vampire.

Bella has a couple of shortcomings, two of which are having a terrible sense of direction and being very clumsy, both of which get her into trouble that Edward always seems to get her out of in the nick of time. 

Bella is in love with Edward and accepts him and his vampire ways.   

Soon, another vampire family comes to town and the leader, James, goes after Bella and hunts her, viciously attacks, and bites her, but Edward saves her and sucks James’s venom out of her before she can be transformed into a vampire.

Edward takes Bella to the prom and she asks him to bite her so that she can be a vampire too, but he refuses.

Edward promises that he will stay with her forever.

Meyers is expert at setting the mood of the story by describing the gray skies, damp place. She writes, “…alone in the darkening forest. Not while the rain made it dim as twilight under the canopy and pattered like footsteps across the matted earthen floor.” (p. 184).  She also uses foreshadow to give hints about events to come. When describing Bella on that first morning at her new school, she writes, “I can do this, I lied to myself feebly. No one was going to bite me.”

Meyer, S. (2005). Twilight. Waterville, ME: Thorndike Press.

One Potato, Two Potato

by Cynthia DeFelice; Pictures by Andrea U’Ren

Bluebonnet Nominee

Mr. and Mrs. Grady live on a farm together and they are very poor in that they have only one of everything and share everything, and yet, they consider themselves very lucky.

Even though they are very happy together, they each want a friend with whom to discuss their interests.

One day Mr. O’ Grady digs the last potato from the garden and also digs up a large black pot he finds in the garden, which they find to be magic. When they put one of anything in the pot, they can pull out two of the thing.

From the magic pot, they get extra potatoes, flowers, candles, blankets, and other things, until Mrs. O’ Grady accidentally falls in the pot and then there are 2 of her. They decide Mr. O’ Grady must also go into the pot and then there are 2 of him, too.

They are happy that now they really have everything they need, especially the friends that they longed for.

They decide they will bury the magic pot for someone else to find and they are beside themselves with joy.

The illustrations in this picture book greatly add to the story.  They give the reader a good visual of the action taking place in the story; they explain the action.  Also, the sparing details in the illustrations give the reader a sense of the O’ Grady’s poverty.

DeFelice, C. (2006). One Potato, Two Potato. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.

Interrupting Chicken

Written and Illustrated by David Ezra Stein

Caldecott Winner

When it’s time to read a bedtime story to little red chicken and Papa says, “…you are not going to interrupt the story tonight, are you?” the reader understands that little red chicken has a habit of interrupting her bedtime stories.

Papa wants little red chicken to relax during her bedtime story so she can fall asleep, but little red chicken can’t help interrupting the story to try to save the characters, like Hansel and Gretel, from harm.

Little red chicken continues to interrupt the stories (Hansel and Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood, and Chicken Little) until Papa is out of stories, so asks little red chicken to tell a story.

Little red chicken writes and illustrates a story called Bedtime for Papa and before long, realizes Papa has fallen asleep.

She is surprised that her Papa has fallen asleep and says, “Good night, Papa.”

Finally, little red chicken snuggles beside her Papa and finally falls asleep.

 

The illustrations in this book are colorful and vibrant, while still giving the reader a sense of bedtime, with the glow of a lamp and moonlight through a window. It’s clever how the classic stories appear in muted colors, as illustrated pages from those books, and then little red chicken appears in them as herself, in her vibrant colors, to save the characters. The illustrations have details, such as little red chicken’s toy box, nightstand, printed wallpaper, that create a nice setting for this bedtime story.

Stein, D. (2010). Interrupting Chicken. Somerville, MA: Candlewick Press.

Down Girl and Sit: On the Road

By Lucy Nolan; Illustrated by Mike Reed

Bluebonnet Nominee

Down Girl and Sit are best-friend-dogs that like to chase squirrels, don’t like cats, and like to ride in the car. 

Down Girl and Ruff are interested in having fun, like kissing people, playing, chasing cats, and exploring, but Ruff, Down Girl’s master, just wants to go to the beach and relax, so this poses a series of mishaps for him.

This book is actually four vignettes on the adventures of Down Girl, not one story, but each vignettes is complete,  fun, and interesting and Down Girl’s character is portrayed with hilarious consistency.

If there is a climax to this story, it is when, after her final adventure in the book, she heads home and says, “Here’s the funny thing about roads. It doesn’t matter how scary they are. If you turn your car around and follow them in the other direction, they always take you home.”  Down Girl goes home with Ruff after her final scary adventure. Down Girl is safe with Ruff.

Down Girl’s character has a lot of depth and would be a good way to help develop lower-grade readers’ ability to identify characterization. The book is written from Down Girl’s point of view and it is a good way to show how one character’s story can be told in a vastly different way from another character’s. 

Nolan, L. (2005). Down Girl and Sit: On the Road. Tarrytown, NY: Marshall Cavendish Corporation.

Dark Emperor & other Poems of the Night

By Joyce Sidman; Illustrated by Rick Allen

Newberry Honor Book

This picture book features poems about night and the creatures of the night and, with each poem is an expository piece about the nocturnal creature or other (mushroom and the moon) described in the poem or its artwork.  The artwork throughout the book is detailed and its composition helps tell the stories of these nighttime beings. There is a Glossary at the end of the book, which will be very helpful to young readers as they read.

 

The book is well-illustrated. The colors of the illustrations are muted, helping to create the feeling of nighttime, and they contain a lot of detail and visual interest.

Sidman, J. (2010). Dark Emperor & Other Poems of the Night. New York, NY: Houghton, Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

After Tupac & D Foster

by Jacqueline Woodson

Newberry Honor Book

Two girls, Neeka and the narrator (never named), are best friends and live across the street from each other in Queens, NY when, one day a girl named D walks up onto their block and becomes their friend. The story begins around the time Tupac was shot.

All the girls relate to the music of Tupac Shakur, but mostly D. D. She calls herself a roamer and lives with a foster mom, and says she is trying to find her “big purpose” in life.

The girls are best friends and we learn a lot about Neeka (She has younger twin brothers and younger twin sisters, a basketball playing brother who wants to play in the NBA, and a brother who is gay and in prison and a little about the narrator (she’s a reader and is smart). They don’t know much about D but they love her anyway. One night D comes over to announce that she will be leaving Queens and going to live with her mom.

One day, Neeka and the narrator are outside listening to Tupac’s latest album and D walks up with a woman who turns out to be her mom and the girls say a final goodbye.

When they get the news that Tupac was shot again and may not survive this time, the narrator gets a call from D to lament Tupac’s attack and probable death.

The narrator can never reach D again and she says it is hard for her to think of Tupac and not think of D. In the end, she hopes that D found her purpose and is happy wherever she is.

Notable literary qualities:

Written from the un-named narrator’s point of view, the girls’ voices through dialogue are clear and true throughout the novel.  Taking the music and writing of Tupac Shakur and making those the source of admiration of the three main characters helps develop the attitudes of the three main characters.

Woodson, J. (2008). After Tupac & D Foster. New York, NY: G. P. Putnam’s Sons.

Seadogs: an epic ocean operetta

Written by Lisa Wheeler; Illustrated by Mark Siegel Bluebonnet Nominee This picture book is the story of a young girl puppy who goes to the opera to see the production of Seadogs; the book is told as a stage production of an operetta. The Old Seadog takes a ship, The Beauty, out to sea one last time with a small crew, Brave Beagle and a cooking Dachshund, to set “off to find adventure where a dog can be a king!" They ship out to sea one last time but are attacked by a band of pirates, “The filthy, roving Mongrel Horde of Captain Jacques Fifi – The Terrier of the Sea” who stole everything on board, but leave behind a puppy (Pup) and a treasure map, which the Seadogs use to search for treasure. After finding the treasure on a deserted island, the pirates rob them and tie them up in a tree, but Dachshund rescues his crew and they all escape. Captain Jacques Fifi’s crew mutinies and throw him overboard and old Seadog gives Dachshund and Brave Beagle his ship and he is content to settle on land with his new family, Pup. The little girl puppy who saw the production of Seadogs is happy and excited about the performance and she imagines that she is a seadog too. The comic book style illustrations in this book are colorful and detailed and keep the theme of dogs being pirates consistent throughout the book. APA Citation Wheeler, L. (2004). Seadogs: An Epic Ocean Operetta. New York, NY: Atheneum Books for Young Readers.