If you were among the summer moviegoers packing into theaters filled with excited children awaiting the start of Pixar's Toy Story 3, then you had the pleasure of viewing Day & Night, the animated short that preceded the main feature. I know that my kids and I cracked up at the antics of these two completely opposite creatures, but I had no idea that Disney Pixar worked in conjunction with Chronicle Books to create a picture book of the same title. Teddy Newton, the film's director, brought the spirit of the movie to the pages of the small book Day & Night, with a narrator telling the story in brief sentences. The scenes in the book may not be exactly the same as in the animated film, but the feelings remain unchanged. While their differences ...
Category Archives: ages 3 – 6
LMNO Peas
As a former elementary school teacher and a parent, I've seen lots of alphabet books. As we all know, alphabet books are a fun way to introduce the alphabet and encourage young children to interact with books. In his new book, LMNO Peas, author Keith Baker presents the alphabet in such a fun way that it is sure to delight the preschool crowd. As the title suggests, this book is about peas, and it is dedicated to "pea-ple everywhere--young and old, large and small, green and round." The adorable little peas "work and play in the ABCs." Each letter of the alphabet includes peas in different roles, like acrobats, artists, and astronauts or kickers, kayakers, and kings. The sing-song text makes a perfect read-aloud, and the whimsical, bright illustrations ...
Two Cats and a Goldfish
Kids generally like stories about pets. Whether they actually own that pet, or simple beg yearly to get one, domesticated animals are usually a safe and appealing topic for a children's picture book. Here are three that we've recently enjoyed: Memoirs of a Goldfish is the kind of book my 6-year-old son and I really enjoy: brightly colored, funny, and original (In fact, Memoirs of a Goldfish was his pick that I featured in June, linked to my review). It is published by Sleeping Bear Press and lives up to the high standard that I've recently come to expect from them. Seeing as how I love to read "real" memoirs, the fact that this book is written as 14 different daily diary entries from the goldfish was quite amusing to me. This goldfish's ...
Welcome to Monster Isle
If you are ever looking for some books that are a little out of the ordinary, you might want to take a peek at Immedium publishers. Oh trust me. You'll begin to know them when you see them because of their cartoon-like illustrations. Recently they sent me a few of their titles to check out and I really think that they are so original that I wanted to pass along a couple of the titles to you, so at the very least you can be informed about them. Starting with Welcome to Monster Isle we find a family of tourist who are marooned on an unknown island. Turns out it's Monster Island and I think it's safe to say that the family members are a little ...
Early Readers
If you have a reluctant reader of any sort, or have a reader who finds most beginning reading books a bit boring, check out Carson Dellosa's line of readers. I have been familiar with Carson Dellosa books for some time. They are most easily found at (any) school supply store, however, their books are also available on their website and on Amazon. They have a wide range of educational products to promote and encourage reading in even the youngest of children. Jennifer and I explored their booth at a bit at the Book Expo this past May and I got caught up on some of their newer product lines. I was very interested to see that they have a series of readers all about animals ...
Not All Princesses Dress in Pink
My daughter is all girl when it comes to wearing dresses and colors like pink and purple. Not long ago, my dad asked, "Why do you make her wear dresses all the time?" I laughed and explained, "I don't make her. If I get anything else out of the closet, she complains and begs for a dress. That's all she wants to wear." Of course, even with a dress on, my princess can hang with the boys. My son plays baseball, and as you can imagine, he is covered with dirt and grass stains at the end of a game. Unfortunately, he is never the dirtiest person in the car on the ride home from the field. That honor goes to my daughter, dress and all! She likes to feel pretty, but she sure likes ...
Books on Screen: Despicable Me Tie-ins
A kids' movie just isn't produced any more without all sorts of tie-ins. For a movie that we really enjoyed (as we did this one), I think of a tie-in as something to help us remember the movie -- a sort of souvenir. As part of my press junket goodie bag, I received a few neat tie-ins that I wanted to share. Sleepy Kittens Just the fact that this book exists makes me happy. The bedtime story theme is so sweet in the movie, and having this as a tie-in is a lot of fun. There is not a little brush that comes out of the book, like in the movie, but it's still a lot of fun. The little kitties are finger puppets like in the movie. And even though it's supposed to be the ...
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Jennifer Donovan
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