Once upon an alphabet - Oliver Jeffers

Once upon an alphabet -  Jeffers, Oliver

Summary: "From an Astronaut who's afraid of heights, to a Bridge that ends up burned between friends, to a Cup stuck in a cupboard and longing for freedom, this series of interconnected stories and characters explores the alphabet"-- Provided by publisher.


BookPage Reviews

Whimsy from A to Z

It’s one thing to learn your ABCs. It’s quite another when Oliver Jeffers is in charge. His new picture book, Once Upon an Alphabet, contains 26 very short stories, beginning with “An Astronaut” and ending with “Zeppelin.” Preschoolers and beginning readers will delight in these vignettes featuring everything from a lumberjack who repeatedly gets struck by lightning to, of all things, a puzzled parsnip.

Jeffers (The Day the Crayons Quit) uses comical illustrations and sophisticated humor throughout, sometimes linking several stories. “An Enigma” asks how many elephants can fit inside an envelope, and readers must go to “N” for the answer. Kids will eat up Jeffers’ wacky wickedness, such as in “Half a House,” in which poor Helen lives in the remains of a house on the edge of a seaside cliff. (The rest collapsed during a hurricane.) One day, alas, Helen rolls out of the wrong side of the bed.

Jeffers knows how to catch the attention of his young audience while challenging their imagination, intellect and vocabulary. This whimsical exploration of letters and language begs to be read over and over again.

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Sometimes you barf - Nancy L . Carlson

Sometimes you barf - Carlson, Nancy L. 

Summary: A sick girl who throws up at school learns that vomiting is sometimes unavoidable and that the sickness--and the embarrassment--will pass. - (Baker & Taylor)

Booklist Reviews
Readers need but glance at the endpapers, crammed with green-faced, bulgy-cheeked critters, to know what to expect here: vomit, and lots of it. Though fictional, Carlson's book acts as a practical what-to-expect guide for losing your lunch. A straight-talking young lass gets us off to a good start: a two-page spread of spewing animals. Everyone, you see, engages in the ol' Technicolor yawn. For a dog, explains the girl, hurling is no biggie, "but barfing is scary to a kid!" She recounts how an "icky flu bug" (from a school lunch, natch) makes her queasy and how she tries to resist horking, but, ultimately, upchuck will not be denied. "When you barf at school," she adds, "be prepared, because everyone will go nuts!" Yes, schooltime cookie tossings are traumatic—no one likes to see the janitor and his "special barf cleanup machine"—but Carlson's message is that it's normal, temporary, and you'll even be welcomed back. Giddily illustrated with glorious cartoon grossness, this is a great normalizing device for all those reluctant regurgitators out there. Copyright 2014 Booklist Reviews.

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Dory Fantasmagory - Abby Hanlon

Dory Fantasmagory - Hanlon, Abby

Summary: Dory, the youngest in her family, is a girl with a very active imagination, and she spends the summer playing with her imaginary friend, pretending to be a dog, battling monsters, and generally driving her family nuts.

Booklist Reviews
A little sister causes all kinds of trouble in Hanlon's debut chapter book. Aimed at beginning readers, it is narrated by six-year-old Dory, whose chief goal in life is to be invited to play with her older brother and sister. Of course, they don't want to play with her because she acts "like such a baby," asks constant questions, and plays with imaginary creatures. Indeed Dory has such a vivid imagination that the black-and-white illustrations often picture what Dory believes is happening, not what the rest of the family is experiencing. Young readers may or may not identify with Dory, whose antics annoy even her mother (like when Dory persists in pretending to be a puppy at the doctor's office), but they will better understand another child's intense need for attention. In both words and pictures, Hanlon succeeds in getting inside Dory's head—and it's pretty lively in there. Copyright 2014 Booklist Reviews.

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City dog, country frog - Mo Willems

City dog, country frog - Willems, Mo

Summary: Through the seasons, whenever City Dog visits the country he runs straight for Country Frog's rock to play games with him, but during the winter things change for them both.

Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* The book begins in spring. City Dog comes to the country, thrilled to run without a leash. Something stops him—Country Frog. Frog's waiting for a friend: "But you'll do." After that the duo plays together, and Frog teaches Dog about splashing and croaking. In the summer, City Dog returns and runs to see Frog. Now it's his turn to teach Frog games, replete with sniffing, fetching, and barking. In the fall, Country Frog is tired. "Maybe we can play remembering games." And that's what they do, remembering jumping and splashing, sniffing and barking. In the winter, snow is everywhere, but Frog is gone. When spring returns, a chipmunk comes across City Dog. "What are you doing?" she asks. City Dog replies sadly, "Waiting for a friend." Then he smiles a "froggy" smile and adds, "But you'll do." It's hard to imagine a picture book that more consistently (and touchingly) hits all the right notes. Willems, never one to overwrite, is gracefully spare here, making every word count. That leaves room for Muth's watercolors, richly seasonal, which fill each page. The pictures are imbued with hope and happiness, leaving and longing. This wonderful collaboration makes a significant impact with subtlety and wit. Adults and children will each take away something of their own.

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Lulu and the cat in the bag - Hilary McKay

Lulu and the cat in the bag - McKay, Hilary

Summary: "When a mysterious bag is left on Lulu's doorstep, the last thing her grandmother expects to be in it is a cat--a huge, neon orange cat. But Lulu knows this cat doesn't mean any harm and in fact it needs a lovely new home"-- Provided by publisher.

Booklist Reviews
When an enormous orange cat is left in a bag on Lulu's doorstep, she and her cousin Mellie are awestruck, while their grandmother Nan is alarmed and irritated. But just as Lulu knows how to reassure the wary newcomer, she also understands that Nan needs time to warm up to the cat. From Lulu's independent (not to say disobedient) streak to Nan's ability to change her mind, McKay brings the characters to life in scenes full of warmth, wit, and perception. Lamont's lively drawings with gray washes illustrate the story. An appealing beginning chapter book from the excellent Lulu series. Copyright 2013 Booklist Reviews.

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The right word: Roget and his thesaurus - Jennifer Bryant

The right word: Roget and his thesaurus - Bryant, Jennifer

Summary: The story of "shy young Peter Mark Roget, [for whom] books were the best companions--and it wasn't long before Peter began writing his own book. But he didn't write stories; he wrote lists. Peter took his love for words and turned it to organizing ideas and finding exactly the right word to express just what he thought. His lists grew and grew, eventually turning into one of the most important reference books of all time"--Amazon.com.

Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* Bryant's and Sweet's talents combine to make the lowly thesaurus fascinating in this beautifully illustrated picture-book biography of Peter Mark Roget. Born in the late eighteenth century, shy Roget was prone to wandering alone and began keeping lists of words at a young age. Even as he went to medical school and became a talented and respected physician, he still kept his book of word lists, gradually improving on the concept until he published his first thesaurus, classified thematically rather than alphabetically as it is today, in 1852. Echoing Roget's obsession with words, Sweet's intricate and elaborate collage illustrations—made out of textbooks, graph paper, maps, fabric, typewriter keys, and other found objects—put words on center stage. Lists in wildly expressive handwritten fonts along with cut-paper assemblages stuff the dynamic pages, even the appended time line and endpapers, with arresting detail. Pivotal moments in Roget's life get a similar treatment: terms related to plants bloom in tendrils around a watercolor illustration of Roget on one of his many walks. In brilliant pages teeming with enthusiasm for language and learning, Bryant and Sweet (A Splash of Red, 2013) joyfully celebrate curiosity, the love of knowledge, and the power of words. Copyright 2014 Booklist Reviews.

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Brown girl dreaming - Jacqueline Woodson

Brown girl dreaming - Woodson, Jacqueline

Summary: "Jacqueline Woodson, one of today's finest writers, tells the moving story of her childhood in mesmerizing verse. Raised in South Carolina and New York, Woodson always felt halfway home in each place. In vivid poems, she shares what it was like to grow up as an African American in the 1960s and 1970s, living with the remnants of Jim Crow and her growing awareness of the Civil Rights movement. Touching and powerful, each poem is both accessible and emotionally charged, each line a glimpse into a child's soul as she searches for her place in the world. Woodson's eloquent poetry also reflects the joy of finding her voice through writing stories, despite the fact that she struggled with reading as a child. Her love of stories inspired her and stayed with her, creating the first sparks of the gifted writer she was to become. Praise for Jacqueline Woodson: Ms. Woodson writes with a sure understanding of the thoughts of young people, offering a poetic, eloquent narrative that is not simply a story. but a mature exploration of grown-up issues and self-discovery"-The New York Times Book Review"-- Provided by publisher.

Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* What is this book about? In an appended author's note, Woodson says it best: "my past, my people, my memories, my story." The resulting memoir in verse is a marvel, as it turns deeply felt remembrances of Woodson's preadolescent life into art, through memories of her homes in Ohio, South Carolina, and, finally, New York City, and of her friends and family. Small things—ice cream from the candy store, her grandfather's garden, fireflies in jelly jars—become large as she recalls them and translates them into words. She gives context to her life as she writes about racial discrimination, the civil rights movement, and, later, Black Power. But her focus is always on her family. Her earliest years are spent in Ohio, but after her parents separate, her mother moves her children to South Carolina to live with Woodson's beloved grandparents, and then to New York City, a place, Woodson recalls, "of gray rock, cold and treeless as a bad dream." But in time it, too, becomes home; she makes a best friend, Maria, and begins to dream of becoming a writer when she gets her first composition notebook and then discovers she has a talent for telling stories. Her mother cautions her not to write about her family, but, happily, many years later she has—and the result is both elegant and eloquent, a haunting book about memory that is itself altogether memorable. Copyright 2014 Booklist Reviews.

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Rain reign - Ann M Martin

Rain reign - Martin, Ann M

Summary: Struggling with Asperger's, Rose shares a bond with her beloved dog, but when the dog goes missing during a storm, Rose is forced to confront the limits of her comfort levels, even if it means leaving her routines in order to search for her pet.

Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* Rose, a fifth-grader who has been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, is often teased at school about her obsession with homonyms and her steadfast conviction that everyone should follow the rules at all times. Rose lives with her harsh, troubled father, but it's Uncle Weldon who cares for her in the ways that matter most. Still, her father did give her Rain, a stray dog that comforts and protects Rose. After Rain is lost in a storm and recovered, Rose learns that her dog has an identification microchip. Though she fully grasps what that means, Rose is driven by the unwavering belief that she must follow the rules, find Rain's former owners, and give the dog back to them. Simplicity, clarity, and emotional resonance are hallmarks of Rose's first-person narrative, which offers an unflinching view of her world from her perspective. Her outlook may be unconventional, but her approach is matter-of-fact and her observations are insightful. Readers will be moved by the raw portrayal of Rose's difficult home life, her separation from other kids at school, and her loss of the dog that has loved her and provided a buffer from painful experiences. A strong story told in a nuanced, highly accessible way. Copyright 2014 Booklist Reviews.

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