What Do You Do With a Tail Like This? (2003)

 What Do You Do With a Tail Like This? by Steve Jenkins and Robin Page won a Caldecott Honor award in 2004. It’s cover art hints at the beauty and creativity inside this book. I say hints because the book isn’t just gorgeous collage, it also has content.

This large picture book is a first step into the nonfiction world of wildlife. I love the format: it challenges us to think of parts and whole. A two-page spread shows only one part of five creatures  and the next two-page spread is the big reveal.  We wonder which animals own the noses, for example. A contemplative pause on this page encourages engagement. A page turn answers the question—the noses belong to a platypus, hyena, elephant, alligator, and mole. And, we learn what these creatures do with their noses! Next we’re asked, “What do you do with ears like these?” And we learn about the bat, jackrabbit, hippopotamus, cricket, and whale. By the time we finish the book, we’ve met 30 different creatures. And there’s a bonus! Four pages of backmatter provide a paragraph of additional information about each one. 

TheAdventures of Taxi Dog (1990)

When a taxi driver picks up a stray dog, they no longer roam New York City alone in The Adventures of TAXI DOG by Debra and Sal Barracca. Pictures by Mark Buehner show children in a (mostly) happy and busy urban center. Written in rhyme from Maxi's point of view, readers accompany the taxi as it drives uptown and down. Maxi (without a gender identity) meets characters who hail the cab: a singer, a woman about to have a baby, and even clowns. Adults will need to help children with inferences in both the text and illustrations. While this story is a gentle source of background knowledge for young readers unfamiliar with city life, urban students may want to share personal experiences. 

This book is read aloud online by Fox creek Municipal Library.

The Miacademy Learning Channel introduces readers to New York City in

"Let's Take a Journey: New York City, U.S.A. - Beginning Social Studies 2 for Kids!".

My Picture Book Talk lesson for this story is here. 

Libba: the Magnificent Musical Life of ELIZABETH COTTEN (2018)

The title Libba: The Magnificent Musical Life of ELIZABETH COTTON by Laura Veirs (2018) is about a folk music legend. As a young girl, Libba played her older brother’s guitar then hustled herself a job to earn money to buy her own guitar. “All day and night she played that guitar!” By the age of 13, she’d already written Freight Train, the song for which she would be famous. 

Half way in, the story leapfrogs over decades. She’s a grandmother working in a department store when a chance meeting with Ruth Crawford Seeger leads her back to the guitar. The Seegers are famous musicians. They recognize Libba’s talent and dedication: here is a woman who — as a child— taught herself to play the guitar upside down and backwards because she was left-handed. Tatyana Fazlalizadeh’s illustrations are graphite and digital color in a limited, muted palette that creates a feeling of historical documentary.

There’s an informative four-page Author’s Note at the back of the book that describes Elizabeth Cotton’s life and why Laura Veirs authored this story. The book ends with two pages of references and a photograph of Libba playing guitar for her great grandchildren.

 You can watch elderly Elizabeth Cotton speak with elementary school children on YouTube courtesy of the Oregon Historical Society. This book is read aloud online by the International Quilt Museum.

My Picture Book Talk lesson for this story is here. 

Snook Alone (2010)

 Snook Alone by Marilyn Nelson  (2010) is about an intelligent, loyal dog stranded on an island when his owner must flee a rapidly approaching tropical storm. Nelson is an award-winning poet, and it’s obvious that she chooses each word of this story with great care. After we learn about Snook’s daily routine in the first half of the book, we watch him adapt to his new island surroundings. A canine sense of smell reveals drinking water. But his keen hearing does not perceive his human friend’s voice in the wind and waves—until near the end, when his memory of  hearing “good dog” fills him with love.

 Timothy Basil Ering’s illustrations add vitality to the text. Snook and his friend, Abba Jacob, appear as devoted comrades. His limited palette and artistic skill effectively depict the emotional extremes of joy and loneliness. The reunion is visually thrilling. 

 The text is not easy; the illustration is fine art; Snook’s longing is intense. These three attributes make this book appropriate for the older student. Nelson and Ering explain their  collaboration at the 2010 National Book Festival.

 Snook Alone is read aloud by Marissa Cilento in two parts: Part 1 and Part 2.

My Picture Book Talk for this story is here. 

Forest Has a Song (2013)

 Forest Has a Song by Amy Ludwig Vanderwater is a collection of 26 poems that describe a young girl's experience walking in a forest. The poems have only a few challenging vocabulary words. The poems often flow in an easy rhythm. Most stanzas appear in lines from one to five words long. Robbin Gourley’s bright colorful illustrations show plant, animal, and bird life in all four seasons. This book reminds us that forests can be places to connect with nature.   

 In my opinion, the title of this book combined with the cover art asks readers to explore the earth’s woodlands. The title of the first poem is “Invitation”; a forest breeze and waving trees signal, “I'm here. Come visit. Please?” We find song in the forest, song made up of natural languages that Vanderwater helps us appreciate in lyrical verse. The last lines of the book are “I am Forest. Remember I am here.”

Warning: In the poem “Wintergreen”, Child tastes a wintergreen plant. It may be important to tell readers never to eat plants without the permission of a knowledgeable adult.

This book is read aloud online by Wednesday with Wendy.

My Picture Book Talk lesson for this book is here. 

Timothy Tib (2001)

Timothy Tib by Liz Graham-Yooll is a page-by-page description of the many characteristics of the cat we see beneath the title. He’s walking toward us, tail raised in friendly greeting (Cox). On the left side of each two-page spread is story and a pencil sketch; on the right side is an oil painting of Timothy Tib. Each page of text has only two sentences.  The first sentence presents as two lines that rhyme, so students are exposed to both rhyme and lengthy sentence structure. The second sentence is italicized and summarizes the previous rhyme, usually with an adjective. For example, ”And sometimes he will stare for hours at lizards hunting in the flowers. Timothy Tib is a curious cat.” A painting puts the three lines of text in picture form. This book can function as an English lesson in disguise.

 At first glance, this may look like a book for young readers because the print is large and the text sparse. But there’s nothing childish here. This is my favorite kind of book for the older student who struggles with reading. The language is appropriate for any age and the illustrations are fine art.

This book is read aloud online for the young child by gnidraham, The older student may enjoy a documentary about domestic cats by Pets & Vets.

 My Picture Book Talk lesson for this story is here. 

Wabi Sabi (2008)

 

Wabi Sabi by Mark Reibstein is a skillful tale about “a way of seeing the world that is at the heart of Japanese culture”. The main character is a cat named Wabi Sabi. This is the story of her journey to learn the meaning of her name. It’s written with both prose and haiku—in “the haibun form, where short prose passages set up each haiku.” Reibstein provides backmatter and translations of  14 Japanese haiku that appear throughout the book.

The collage art by Ed Young is exceptional. His  illustrations are wabi sabi artworks; unfortunately, they lose a bit of their potency on the flat page. Many thanks to BooksVideosTV for introducing us to Young, his art, and specifically, an account of how he created art for this book. The older student and adult will benefit from reading Mark Mitchell’s blog for more information. 

This magnificent book is read aloud by Read Aloud with Ms Caudle .

 After reading wabi sabi: the japanese art of impermanence by Andrew Juniper, I interpreted Wabi Sabi’s journey as representing the tea ceremony. Juniper writes that participants in the tea ceremony “leave  their petty world behind”, perhaps the city that Wabi Sabi passes through.  He references “livid autumn colors of maple leaves”, which we see in Young’s illustrations. I now see the wise, old monkey as the tea master. “The perfect clarity of mind and seamless movements of the master evoke a hypnotic effect in the participants, who then can become one with the mind and spirit of the tea master.” (Juniper 40) After the tea ceremony, Wabi Sabi understands the meaning of her name.

A little research into haiku reveals controversy over how it’s taught requiring a specific syllable structure. The English haiku in Wabi Sabi all have the 5 – 7 – 5 syllable form. Translations of the Japanese haiku free readers from this structure and allow them to attend to on other aspects of the poetry.

My Picture Book Talk for this story is here.