The opening pages of the book help define the word scat, but the primary focus is on the “animal fecal droppings” one. Yes, this book talks a lot about animal poop, and while kids might chuckle at Finn’s bad luck as she splats into a variety of small piles, they also are getting a serious education on how to identify the types of animals in an environment by both the types of scat and tracks that are visible. Alongside the rhyming story line that follows Finn and her tired old hound dog, are different sections of informative text that share facts about animals such as Eastern Cottontail Rabbits, Red Foxes, and even little Black-capped Chickadees. The tidbits are presented in language accessible to children aged preschool and up, and parents may find themselves learning a new thing here and there, too.

Useful and funny, with cute illustrations by Carrie Anne Bradshaw, this picture book has even me looking more closely at the ground while my own family walks in a nearby park! From avid naturalist families to those who just occasionally take a stroll in a wooded park, Track that Scat! is a literary companion to children’s natural world experiences.

Dawn’s days are spent teaching preschool, parenting her own crazy trio, occasionally fitting in a conversation with her husband, and every once in a while blogging away at my thoughts exactly.

East Dragon lives like royalty in a palace with his eight brothers and sisters and the emperor’s family. He and his siblings are beloved by the emperor who values their advice and provides a beautiful home for them. West Dragon lives in a cave, but he’s happy there… until his cave becomes overcome with kings and knights who try to prove their worth by “waving their silly swords.” West Dragon drafts a plan to get them all out of his hair so he can take a long nap, and soon, the lives of the dragons intersect. Unfortunately, not everyone sees dragons in the same peaceful light, and these different perspectives soon cause trouble for everyone. Can two dragons from opposite sides of the world see past their preconceived notions of each other in order to join forces?

I’m a big fan of this book for its small details and large-scale ideas. (Get it, large-SCALE? Ha!) Scott Campbell’s whimsical illustrations bring to life two very different environments, and depict both dragons in an adorable fashion. The story itself is fun and will bring out giggles from young children, while also presenting the idea that differences aren’t things to be afraid of. No judgment is cast for which dragon is better or right, they simply live in different worlds, which is just fine.

East Dragon, West Dragon will make for a spirited read aloud with children of various ages, and I’m looking forward to sharing it with my own preschool and kindergarten aged children.

Dawn is fascinated with children’s lit, and her life as a mom and a preschool teacher leave her immersed in it on a regular basis. She blogs at my thoughts exactly.

Kate Sanford lives on the hope that she will someday become a writer for the music magazine she adores. She knows music, and she’s fairly certain she’s got the writing chops to make it, but the puzzle pieces haven’t exactly fallen into place yet. But when the gods smile upon her and she lands the interview, she ends up sabotaging her own future with her partying ways. But, as a result of her drunken appearance at the interview, she is called back for an assignment… one that most people would consider dark and amoral. In her desperation, Kate accepts the assignment, not thinking it through, but only seeing the possibilities it could bring about. Little does she know that thirty days in rehab, supposedly there to get the scoop on a celeb best known for her appearances on the covers of gossip magazines, will really change her life in ways she never could have expected.

McKenzie presents these characters with all their flaws on full display, yet readers may find themselves liking Kate even as they want to shake some sense into her. Scenes that should be full of pain somehow manage to play to a dark sense of humor, so that I was laughing even while trying not to judge Kate too much. Personal transformation is a key theme here, and McKenzie also makes a fairly strong statement about how we all– celebrity or not– present ourselves in ways that may not be true to who we are.

Spin is a quick read, full of laughs and true heart, and even a little peek into the surreal world of celebrity.

Dawn’s lives in a world far from celebrity, but doesn’t mind a literary trip now and then. She can be found in her online world at my thoughts exactly.

It’s the 100th day of school, of course! My daughter’s classroom has been keeping a chart marking each day of school, and we’re currently in the late 80s. They’re not only learning how to count to 100, but they’re also talking about the concept of grouping and counting by fives and tens. One hundred certainly feels like a gigantic number to a child who’s only been alive for five years or so. To see 100 of anything can be pretty exciting.

Masayuki Sebe’s Let’s Count to 100!, released last August, is a wonderful accompaniment to this type of lesson. Each two-page spread is filled with 100 adorable creatures, from scampering mice to burrowing moles. Some of them are captioned with silly phrases or interactions (there’s even a fart joke with one mole, that probably isn’t too funny to the mole behind him but hilarious to the kindergarten set!), and all are illustrated in a big-eyed, colorfully cartoonish fashion. While all pages feature 100 of something, some pages ask readers to answer different questions that involve counting or sorting the objects, and the final page even challenges children to find one particular creature for each spread. (Not surprisingly, the gassy mole appears here, too!)

I love that Sebe brings all the items together near the end, in groups of ten, to illustrate that ten tens equal one hundred– exactly the math lesson that my daughter’s class is learning as they chart the school days. Look, learning can be fun, kids! (And it can even use bathroom humor while it’s doing it!) Let’s Count to 100! is a great book for any child, but certainly with that 100th day of school right around the corner, now’s the perfect time to read it together.

Dawn’s fascination with children’s literature is fulfilled on a regular basis with her own children, as well as with the preschool class entrusted to her care each day. When she’s not in the classroom, she tries to blog now and again at my thoughts exactly.

I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to a teeny personal agenda, too. I was curious about this series, and if they were here in the house, then I might get a chance to read at least the first one myself.

I spent the first eleven days of the year consuming the series every chance I got. I snuck the books into the bathroom at work, even! I wanted to drop everything in life and just live in Percy’s world. Soon enough, I had made my way through all the books, and I decided to pull down another book that I had put on his list, Brian Selznick’s Wonderstruck. My son had torn through that one the day after he received it, and he had enthusiastically recommended I read it. “You’re going to LOVE it, Mom, I just know it.”

He was right, of course. I was wowed by Selznick’s detailed sketches and their ability to tell a nuanced story in images. The story was touching and emotional, and I lost myself in it one evening. As with Rick Riordan’s series, I found myself marveling at the power of middle grade fiction, the books written primarily for an audience in the nine to twelve age range. This literature needs to speak to kids at a time in their lives when everything is just so intense– emotions, worries, excitements, friendships, life in general. At this age, children are more able to think logically, and they’re just beginning to develop some abstract reasoning, which brings about a greater understanding of others and situations in life beyond their own personal experiences. What a perfect opportunity for literature!

I don’t have the greatest memory for much of my earliest years, but late elementary school is the time that is most alive in my mind of childhood. For me, this was the time when my adoration of reading really blossomed. I can vividly remember the feeling of Scholastic paperbacks in my hand as a kid, anywhere and everywhere. I fell in love with every character I encountered. There wasn’t a book I read that I didn’t love. I wasn’t picky, I just wanted to immerse myself in a world on the page. I wore my Bookworm nickname with pride, and I saw nothing wrong with always having my “nose buried in a book,” as my mother often declared.

As I finished the first book of Riordan’s next series, The Heroes of Olympus, I brought my total of middle grade fiction to seven for the month. (It would have been eight if the second of that series had come in earlier from the library!) Yes, I loved the stories, the action and adventure, the spunky characters, the peek into the world of tweens and teens. I enjoyed bonding with my son over books he has pored over time and again, even though I learned that it is very, very challenging for him to not drop spoiler comments into our conversations!

And, I couldn’t help but revel in the experience of reliving my own childhood reading days. I could almost pretend I was eleven years old again, sprawled out across my double bed, reading the day away. Ahhhh.

Dawn indulges in her love for picture books every day as a preschool teacher and mom to two young children, and she is embracing the world of middle grade fiction alongside her oldest. She lives online at my thoughts exactly.

A new picture book by Phillis Gershator and Mim Green, with illustrations by David Walker, Time for a Hug introduces the concept of time passing as a mom and child bunny go through their day together, starting at eight o’clock in the morning when the child wakes up, all the way until the clock reads eight again in the evening and it’s time to get ready for bed. During their day together, interspersed among the block building, the reading, and dining, it is time for a hug again and again.

The flow of the day for mom and child will be recognizable to young children, and the warmth and love shown in the pages just as comforting and soothing. My five year old daughter enjoys the simple text of this picture book because she can read much of it independently. I can also see this as just the right kind of book to read to a baby or toddler, for the pictures are bright and engaging, and the words repetitive and predictable. As Valentine’s Day approaches, perhaps Time for a Hug is just the right book to read to your own child, for a hug from a loving parent is always welcome!

Dawn gets hugs from her own kids, as well as her preschool class on a daily basis! When she has a spare moment from being Teacher or Mommy, she can be found blogging away at my thoughts exactly.

For the last four years, my life as a stay-at-home mom was certainly hectic, but there were some natural periods of downtime in which reading could occur. During the blessed hours of one and three each afternoon, the children napped and I was free to choose between the lure of blogging, Facebook, or grabbing my book. Quite often, choice number three prevailed, and the time would fly by. I’ll even admit to bringing a book along to the playground on some mornings for those snippets of time when the children played together conflict-free, and I could breeze through five pages or so. I’m not going to minimize the amount of work that I did as a stay-at-home mom, but it did have its advantages in the reading-here-and-there department during the day.

Now that I’ve returned to full-time work, teaching preschool at a university-based laboratory school, I can no longer grab a few minutes of reading at random times during the morning. In the middle of the day, I do have a period of time when I’m out of the classroom, and when I can stop doing work, I try to grab whatever book is the current read for at least ten minutes or so. There’s also the joy of commuting on public transportation, which ideally would provide the best time for reading, though the preschooler and kindergartener who commute with me sometimes put a nix on that. When it’s successful, I enjoy every little minute I can get.

Thankfully, being a mother has prepared me well for reading in short spurts. Back in my breastfeeding days, I eventually found a comfortable position that allowed me to both feed the baby and feed my reading habit. Sometimes that lasted for thirty minutes, other times it was a short five. That was just the beginning of this long path of parenthood, and as my children have grown over the years, I’ve learned that nothing is ever guaranteed. Working or staying home, it doesn’t matter, making the time to read has always taken a bit of effort. Right now, I’m trying to accept the new reality and find what works best.

In any case, reading is, and always has been, my favorite habit to indulge. How do you fit it in?

Editor’s Note: Dawn is also a regular blogger over at the She Knows Real Moms Guide. A recent column that I think our readers will find interesting is Reading Together Every Day, Really. Check it out, as well as Dawn’s other daily blogs for the site.

Dawn is getting better at this whole balancing work/home/family/blogging/reading thing, in tiny increments at least. When she’s not sneaking a few more pages, she might be blogging away at my thoughts exactly.

• When I said “wacky,” I meant it. These two authors must have the oddest creative minds ever, but please know that I mean that in a good way.
• The story is told by the two main characters, Philip Horkman and Jeffrey Peckerman, in alternating chapters.
• One of these two narrators truly lives up to his last name, if you understand slightly vulgar slang.
• Speaking of profanity, it comes naturally to one of these two narrators, and I’ll let you guess which one. The other narrator, though, is as squeaky clean as they come.
• This is perhaps the most absurd and outrageous novel I’ve ever read.

An attempt to sum up the plot could easily become too full of information, thus giving away the multitude of surprise twists and turns to this hilarious story. With minimal details, let’s try this for a summary. The lives of Philip Horkman and Jeffrey Peckerman have never intersected before the fateful day of the under-twelve girls’ soccer championship game that Horkman is refereeing and in which Peckerman’s daughter is playing. One offsides call made by Horkman leaves Peckerman incensed, and the stage is set for what will turn into a series of absolutely unbelievable events that see Horkman and Peckerman seemingly involved in a crime spree, an international terrorist plot, a hijacking scenario, the capture of a ship by Somali pirates, and even more. Honestly, the paths taken by this novel are indescribable and side-splitting funny, at every turn.

The dueling narrators provide two very, very different perspectives on the wild series of events as they are taking place, and it’s clear to us readers that we know much more about Horkman and Peckerman’s situations than they do in the moment. The tone of this writing, though certainly profane in many a place, is sharp and witty, and I couldn’t stop myself from reading passages aloud to my husband. Even though he didn’t have the context of what came before in the story, some individual scenes were too uproarious not to share.

If you’re looking for a bit of raucous reading fun, check out Lunatics and be prepared for a storyline that will go places you never could have foreseen. We have one Advanced Reader’s Copy (pre-published copy of the book) to give away, so leave a comment here to be entered to win and enjoy some laughs! We’ll announce the winner in our regular giveaway slot on 1/25. The giveaway is closed.

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Dawn loves a good read and a good laugh, and she’s thrilled when those two things come together. She tries to share her own laugh-inducing experiences on her blog, my thoughts exactly.