Seven Must-Read Non-fiction Animal Picture Books from the Seven Year Old

There is a ton of animal non-fiction picture books out there! It feels like kids can't possibly read all of them in one childhood. The seven year old at home devours animal books - not just non-fiction picture books but visual encyclopedia and collections like Lang Elliott's Songs of the Wild Birds.

While Prehistoric Life is still on his radar, he has circled back to learning more about some of the curious traits of the present-day animals and why they evolved so.

Of course, out of every dozen books we bring home on the subject, perhaps only about two or three manage to fascinate him for one reason or another and elicit repeat reads. Based on the latest set, these seven (a dozen, to be accurate) books have become firm favorites with the seven year old in the last few weeks, ordered on a scale of out-of-this-world-book to what-a-fun-book-to-read.

Why "seven" and not "twelve" books in the title? Well, I decided to group them by author/illustrators so there's seven groups, with a total of twelve books. Plus, "seven books from the seven year old" has a nicer ring than "a dozen books from the seven year old."

Ideally, I would have dedicated a single post of about 500 words to each of these books purely to sing the virtues and gush over them, but, time is in short supply and so this cluster post will have to do justice for now.

This is not really an authoritative or exhaustive list. This is just the set of books that has currently impressed us. Am sure there'll be more and I'll be sharing them as and when we read them.



Creature Features: 25 Animals Explain Why They Look the Way They Do,

Eye to Eye: how Animals See The World
by Steve Jenkins

Steve Jenkins is much-loved in our house for all the brilliant books he has presented in such an attractive and digestible form. His unique style of collage art, uncluttered use of space, with dense text in short doses to get to the point is just perfect!

The seven year old has been wanting to write to Steve Jenkins asking him how he researches his animals and how he picks them for his book. Plus, he has earmarked a few favorite animals he'd like Mr.Jenkins to write a book about! He doesn't care for fictional superheroes - doesn't care for Batman, Spiderman, Superman, no Transformers, no television, -- but, he has met Kurt Cyrus a few times and even picked his brain this year at the Oregon State Fair regarding making books, and he is totally enamored by Steve Jenkins' creativity and wants to make books like he does. He emulates Kenn Nesbitt by trying to write poetry as in My Hippo has the Hiccups, and re-reads Shel Silverstein for fun when he wants to relax.

Anyway, this is a clever book, zooming in on the one feature or trait of each animal that is unique to that creature, and posing a crisp question to the animal, which the animal sportingly responds with equal facility.

A double-page spread of blobfish looking like a blob prompts the question:

Dear Blobfish: What on earth happened to you?

Being on dry land -- instead of the ocean -- is my problem. At home, deep in the sea, I look like just another fish. But, I'm out of the water, and gravity is smushing me...

Another favorite:

Dear pufferfish: You've got me worried -- are you going to explode?

No, I won't burst. I've inflated my body with water to make it tougher for a big fish to swallow me.

Making of the book was fascinating, as always.

[Creature Feature Mask Kit]

[image source: HMH]

Eye to Eye is another fantastic book about how animals see. At the beginning we learn about the various types of vision that evolved when life began on earth.

From simplest eyespots that are light-sensitive to pinhole, to compound, to camera eyes, we see how each adaptation suits each creature's lifestyle, primarily to hunt prey, find food -- survival.

Back of the book has bite-sized information about evolution of the eye and animal facts.

[Interview with Steve Jenkins]

[image source: HMH]


The Most Amazing Creature in the Sea

by Brenda Z. Guiberson
illustrated by Gennady Spirin

Thirteen sea creatures state exactly why they think they are the most amazing creature in the sea. Written in first person, the text immediately establishes a connection between the reader and the animal on that page.

While it is not necessarily a competition, each animal speaks as if it is vying for the coveted "Most Amazing" title:

I am a Box Jellyfish. My venom is the deadliest. I have millions of stinging toxic cells in my tentacles...

and so it goes. Each animal makes its claim thus, and each one has a point. Until the end, where we encounter the Helpers, without whom none of the other creatures can carry on. And, we incidentally realize how interdependent the ocean eco-system is.

This format absolutely thrilled the kid that he went on to write about it for his school homework.

[Read a few pages in full glory at Google Books]

[Look Inside the book at Macmillan USA]

[image source: Macmillan]

Seabird in the Forest
The Mystery of the Marbled Murrelet
by Joan Dunning

I fell in love with this book when the seven year old brought it to me one morning and said, "Mama, you have to listen to this!" and proceeded to read from the book:

"For nearly two hundred years, people tried to figure out where the marbled murrelet hatches and raises its young, but not one nest could be found."

He paused and repeated it for effect. And I could tell that this fact impressed him the most.

I did pick out this book from the library to read with him, but he beat me to it one night when I was not feeling well, so the next morning, I heard all about the virtues of this book. I wish there was some way to package this joy and enthusiasm and send it to the author to let her know how much her work has impacted this one child.

Unlike most seabirds that prefer offshore rocks and islands for nesting, the marbled murrelet goes far from the shores into the forest. Only a few decades ago, marbled murrelet chick was found high on a Douglas-fir tree in California, miles from the ocean.

The illustrations are gorgeous with sidebar tidbits on each page about the coastal redwoods, flying squirrel, wandering salamander and other related elements in this habitat, in addition to murrelet's own life cycle. The inside front and back covers show this two-page spread of an ancient coastal redwood 365 feel tall in portrait-orientation, in its full glory, with a puny six foot human at the base to show the scale.

Author shares her deep personal connection to the woods and the marbled murrelets in this post compiled by a fourth grader.


[Author reads from the book]

[Science Netlinks Video of Marbled Murrelet]

[image source: amazon.com]


A Little Book of Slime

Everything that oozes, from killer slime to living mold
by Clint Twist

Not my favorite, I have to admit, but the kid loves it -- especially the slime-ometer ratings from 1 to 10 for each of the slimy examples in this book.

Starting with what is slime, we go on to read all about Slimy Stuff in Water like Slime Tube and Hagfish and Sea cucumber, to Slimy Stuff on Land like Cane toad and Velvet worm and Banana Slug and Froghopper to Other Slimy Stuff like Phlegm and decomposing vegetables and Snot mold.

Why is it "Little" Slime Book even though it is packed with a large amount of slime? Well, the book itself is about 7.5 inches by 6 inches by about 0.5 inches, making it small and handy.

[image source: random house]

Curious Critters,
Curious Critters Volume Two,
Curious Critters Marine
by David FitzSimmons

It's a tie between who liked this book more - the kid or me! Of course, we loved this set of books for our own reasons - me, for the brilliant photographs and clever writing that varies the voice and presents each animal with its own personality; the kid, for the fascinating facts and the wealth of information therein.

Dramatic closeups and vivid colors on full page makes this an instant attraction. Plus, the clever text, some with the Texan drawl, some with prim politeness, and some set to popular tunes makes it a pleasure to read, providing an instant personality for these critters, which apparently was the toughest thing to do.

Predaceous Diving Beetle sings:

Row, row, row my legs,
out across the pond,
look for fish, frogs, or worms,
I eat whatever's found.

Down, down, down I dive,
my prey I try to spy,
If my food is getting scarce,
I can also fly.

Eastern Cottontail was a favorite as the little rabbits discover that they eat their own poop -- eating grasses twice helps them get more nutrients the second time through.

As the author shares in this candid article, Writing Curious Critters, it is a challenge to come up with twenty different voices and match them with the personality of the animals -- assuming one is able to assign such personalities to these widely varying critters.

Curious Critters site has goodies for kids like coloring pages and word search and eCards.

[View Sample Pages as Flipbook - does not work in Chrome, fine in Firefox]

[image source: Wild Iris Publishing]

Vulture View,
Woodpecker Wham
by April Pulley Sayre
illustrations by Steve Jenkins

April Pulley Sayre is another much-loved author in our house. Trout, Trout, Trout: A Fish Chant; Ant, Ant, Ant: An Insect Chant; Bird, Bird, Bird: A Chirping Chant; Meet the Howlers; Honk, Honk, Goose... were all much enjoyed, with many repeat-reads.

And, when two fantastic book creators teamed up in Vulture View and Woodpecker Wham, and Eat Like a Bear, I knew we had to read them!

Lilt and rhythm typically characterize Ms. Sayre's books and this one is no exception.

Up, up!
Turkey vultures tilt, soar, scan
to find the food that vultures can...
...eat!

Vultures smell the air.
They sniff, search, seek
for foods that...
...REEK!

Vultures rise with the sun and hunt for carrion, and by the end of daylight, they settle in trees with their families and sleep, only to wake up the next morning and do it all over again. Nature's scavenger.

[View sample pages at Google Books]

The lilt and beat in Woodpecker Wham! reminded us of Bird, Bird, Bird -- a catchy, bouncy read.

Various kinds of woodpeckers are showcased in this book in gorgeous cutpaper collage that is Steve Jenkins' unique style.

We start the book with a Pileated woodpecker swooping and landing on a tree stump, beginning to shred it. As we go along, we find them tapping messages for communicating with each other, flaking the tree trunks to find crawling insects, drilling when spring sap oozes. Then, spreading their feather to dry in the sun and preening and prancing to find a mate, then building a nest:

Start a home.
Bill to bark.
Dig it, dig it --
deep and dark.

We see a Northern flicker diligently making a hole in the tree for nesting. Having observed Northern flickers in our own backyard for a few years, returning to the same hole in the tree for raising a new generation, it was perfect to see them in action in the book.

Hawk's a-hunting.
Stop. Drop. Hide.
Quiet
on the other side.

Of course, in Fall, they fill their tree hole with acorns and other seeds. Some migrate, some stick it out.

Leave that tree hole.
Start one new.
Who will move in
after you?

[View sample pages at Google Books]

[image source: April Pulley Sayre]


Behold the Beautiful Dung Beetle

by Cheryl Bardoe
illustrations by Alan Marks

What's not to like about a book all about poop, especially if you are a seven year old?

Though they all scramble as soon as a fresh pile is available, each of the three types of dung beetle has its own way of enjoying the poop.

Rollers roll them into perfect spheres taking it away from the throng. The Tunnelers hoard it underground, right beneath the pile. Dwellers just sit there and carry on eating while the other two kinds take it away bit by bit.

We learn about their life cycle -- and how the eggs are in the dung pile safe and warm until they hatch; and how the grub eats and eats until it grows bigger, and how it eventually transforms. Which might explain why they have been the ancient symbol of life and renewal.

Illustrations are earthy and gorgeous, focused on dung beetles, with intimate perspectives. One of our favorite pages is where the champions are reaping their rewards up close on the foreground while far in the distant background the giraffes and antelopes graze on, and poop on. Another favorite is when the new adult male with shiny hard exoskeleton finally emerges and we read, "Behold the beautiful dung beetle!" we see him up close in the foreground, large and mighty, while an African elephant grazes in the background, smaller and unsung.

[Book trailer]

[Sample pages at Google Books]

[image source: Publisher Charlesbridge]

Galápagos George
by Jean Craighead George
paintings by Wendell Minor

From the amazing naturalist, Jean Craighead George, we learn about the ancestry of Lonesome George, the lonely long-necked, last of the saddleback tortoises of the Pinta Islands, that has been driven to extinction.

The illustrations captured the time and the mood and the beauty of life on earth. The final illustration conveyed a whole lot more than words can express.

Although more poetic than scientific, the book sparked the kid's interest wondering about how scientists speculate about a common ancestor nicknamed "Giantess George" in the book. How can one *know* is the question that bothers him, and the answer is one cannot know for *certain* but one can draw intelligent conclusions from observations.

The kid refused to believe that the last of this species is gone. He stuck to his belief that Lonesome George mated and made babies a while back and no one knows about it yet. He has half convinced himself that Lonesome George is not quite dead yet, and scientists have found ways to bring back this species, like they did the California Condor.

[image source: Harper Collins]

Four books the 4 yo enjoyed

As I was typing the list of titles here, I realized that these four books have at least one thing in common: they are each written and illustrated by the same person. Something about author-illustrated books (or illustrator-authored books) appeal to me a lot. No doubt, some brilliant collaborations have produced some amazing books but the fascination for "written and illustrated by" is rather compulsive for me.

There Are Cats in This Book 
by Viviane Schwarz

This had both the 4 and the 6 year old amused by the clever way in which it pulled in the reader to interact. The little flap-like pages with cat-shaped cutouts and such novelties had Oggie reaching for it to read by himself.

 Tiny, Moonpie and Andre are three cats who love to play, and nap. The book starts with them purring under a blanket which is just a flap-page, which when turned reveals the cats as if the blanket were pulled off of them. The cats egg the reader on to turn the page and join in their play.

Oggie's favorite? The page with a tidal wave full of fish with the cats struggling to stay afloat urging us to turn the page so they can get out of the water.

 This book turned out to be a lot of fun for the new reader in the family, with just a few words and entertaining visuals.

For some reason, the books designed for Beginner Reader like the I Can Read! books haven't really appealed to Oggie (and incidentally, they didn't appeal to Ana at that age either, a few years ago).

[image source: SmithsonianStore.com]

Stuck 
by Oliver Jeffers

We read How To Catch A Star by Jeffers and Oggie found it odd that the little boy was trying to find a star at daytime "when the stars don't come out", and was shaking his head when the boy does befriend a star just as he set out to, telling me emphatically that that is not the star he was looking for. (The little boy ends up with a Sea Star, not the Sky Star.)

Anyway, since we liked Oliver Jeffers' illustrations in that first book, we read Stuck. A boy's kite gets stuck in a tree and he tries various ways to dislodge it, all of which involve him throwing things up into the tree which in turn gets stuck until finally the kite gets loose and falls back to him.

Why does he throw things in the tree, Mama? Why can he throw the animals on the tree? And many such questions indicated how literally Oggie was taking this book.

And in the last page, the tree is shown stuck with the various things the boy threw up there to dislodge his kite, except it has something like a rocket-ship stuck in the tree whereas none of the pages earlier showed him throw that rocket up there. Baffling for a detail-oriented recently-turned-four year old, but, it did not deter him from enjoying repeat-reads anyway.

[image source: amazon.com]

I Want My Hat Back 
by Jon Klassen 

The bear has lost his hat. He looks for his hat. He finds his hat. The end. So what's all the fuss about this book? Well, one has to read it to understand all the buzz.

It took a couple of reads for Og to catch on, with me lingering longer on  relevant pages at subsequent reads without explaining.

The poker-faced expressions of the animals despite all that is going on, and the comical way in which the bear races back when he knows where he has seen his hat is priceless.

The last page is hilarious.The resident 6 yo breezed through the book and at the end couldn't help asking, "Did the bear really eat the rabbit?"

It appears so, little girl, it indeed appears so.

I loved the illustrations and the whole presentation. It is clever, comical and subtle.

[watch a video clip here]

[image source: schoollibraryjournal.com]

That's How!
 by Christoph Niemann

How does the digger work, Mama? How does the airplane fly in the sky, Papa?

For kids who wonder about how things work but are too little to pay attention to the factual explanation, this fanciful book lets them imagine how things might work.

Presented in the form of a Q&A between two kids, one asking the Q and the other saying, "Hmm... let me think" and then attempting rather far-fetched answer like Airplanes held together and operated by Chickens, Whale and Octopus propelling a Freighter, this book is by no means a serious one meant to help kids understand machines.

Of course, on every page, Oggie laughed aloud before he emphatically stated, "No, that's not really how it works, I know, Mama..." even though he doesn't quite know how they really work.

[image source: laughingsquid.com]

Six from the 6 yo (that vaulted into our Wish List)

Of all the books that came our way in October, selecting just six of the books the six year old and I liked best sure was tough. Only restriction was that the six short-listed ones must be picture books (we will do a separate chapter books list) and something Ana enjoyed reading more than once and would love to share with her friends.

Why six and only six books? Well, for no reason other than that I like the sound of "Six from the Six Year Old" to go with "Three from the Three Year Old" posted earlier.

And, we did find more than six books we liked that I want to share here. At another time. In a separate post. Mostly non-fiction, plus a few delightful chapter books.

It wasn't a surprise to note that four of the six books showcased poetry - Cat Poems, Poetrees, Mirror, Mirror, and Around the World on Eighty Legs.

However, Hooray for Inventors! was a surprise for me. Something about the format and the presentation of tidbits of facts about famous inventors and their inventions seems to have impressed the six yo.

A Horse in the House is one of those books that makes one wonder about the animals and question our assumption that they are just dumb beasts (or that we humans are intellectually well-endowed).

Sometimes we hit a dry patch for weeks and none of the books we randomly bring home from the library stirs us even remotely. Sometimes even the books I placed on hold having read rave reviews about fail to resonate with us. And of course, sometimes there are those books that I love absolutely and want the kids to like them but they were totally unimpressed.

I think we got lucky that many of these wonderful books landed in our house at the same time, somehow cosmically arranged, to help us share it here.

I would've loved to dedicate individual posts to each of these. Maybe I will at Saffron Tree.

Here they are, in no particular order, the six books that not only caught the six year old's attention over the last month's reads, but impressed me tremendously!

Poetrees
by Douglas Florian

This book is ripe with poetrees,
They're grown to educate and please.
You'll see a cedar,
Oak tree too.
Birch and banyan,
Pine and yew,
Palm and gum
And willow tree,
Plus more you'll love tree-mendously!

And true to its promise, Poetrees offers seed-sized lessons about the mighty trees. The font spacing and arrangement of text on some of the poems like The Seed, Tree Rings and Roots - reminded me of the concrete poems we've read (Janeczko's A Poke in the I comes to mind).

Some of the words have been spelled creatively to rhyme and I had fun discovering it with Ana. For example in Tree Rings, "his-tree" at first baffled her but as we replaced it with "history" it made sense. Plus, we learnt about Heartwood and Sapwood. Two things we didn't know before we read this particular poem.

Imagine a background zoomed in on the tree rings, with the text going around in a circle along one of the rings depicted.

Tree Rings:
Tree rings show how trees grow. Wide rings: fast growth. Narrow rings: slow. Heartwood: dead wood. Sapwood: living. A tree's true his-tree free for the giving.

The large format book has huge double-page illustrations for each poem, in portrait orientation (rather than the usual landscape) so that we open the page and hold it up vertically to read and appreciate it in full.

And when I read, "Each poem is printed on a vertical double-page spread illustrated with mixed-media artwork in gouache, watercolor, colored pencil, rubber stamps, oil pastels, and collage on brown paper bags", I was doubly awed by what an interesting canvas the brown paper bag made.

Glossatree (Glossary) at the back of the book provides more information on each tree.

---

Around the World on Eighty Legs: Animal Poems
by Amy Gibson
illustrated by Daniel Salmieri

From Far Far North to Down Under and Out Back, we travel the world and discover the various animals, some thriving, some extinct. All in charming lilting rhyming verse.

Some are short little verses, some are multi-stanza poems, but they all bring out a distinguishing feature about the animal in an unforgettable way.

Anaconda:
Although Anaconda is fond of a hug,
to my liking, his hug is a little too snug —
And a little too strong, and a little too long,
and that's why when I see him, I hurry along.

The illustration for this poem shows a fairly devious-looking anaconda wrapped tightly around a sign that reads "Free Hugs".

We learn about Auk (extinct), Skua, Guillemot (and its wedge-shaped eggs), Proboscis Monkey, Pangolin, Slow Loris, Takin (something she had learnt about thanks to D's Bhutan trip a few years ago), Goanna (thanks to Steve Lattanzi's Goanna Joanna), and even tiny Krill, among other regulars, of course.

Auk:
When moved to talk,
the awkward auk
lets out an awful,
raucous squawk—

No dainty squeak,
no piercing shriek,
no chilling screech
slips past his beak...
(and a couple more verses that reiterate the squawk of the auk)

The illustrations by Daniel Salmieri, combining watercolor, gouache and colored-pencil, complement the text well and are laced with humor and lightness.

The "Menagerie of Facts" located at the back of the book lists the animals alphabetically with brief notes about them. [Amy Gibson's site has resources for teachers]

Much like Polar Bear, Arctic Hare by Eileen Spinelli, this is a book I'd love to have on my bookshelf. It is delightful and informative, with simple colorful illustrations that lean on the funny side. There's something in the book each for the budding writer, the curious young zoologist, the quirky goofball, and the seasoned adult.

---

Mirror, Mirror: A Book of Reversible Verses
by Marilyn Singer
illustrated by Josée Masse

Fairy Tales. There is always something new to discover - a new perspective, an interesting what-if, a hidden agenda... We never tire of them.

Mirror, Mirror takes some of the classic fairy tales and turns them upside down. Literally. In breathtakingly refreshing, clever, and unique reversible verses.

Isn't this a fairy tale?

A fairy tale this isn't...

Write a short verse. Read it in reverse, line-by-line, with perhaps change in punctuation. Does it make sense? If so, does it convey the same idea from a different perspective, an opposite perspective? Then you have a reverso poem.

Sleeping Beauty, Red Riding Hood, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Cinderella, Princess and the Frog, Hansel and Gretel, Rapunzel... there are two sides to every story.

Picture a larger than life wolf camouflaged among the trees in the woods in the background. Now imagine him wearing a snazzy suit coat and a hat, lumbering on all fours. Slavering jaw. Front paw raised in motion. Glaring... glaring at the little girl in the foreground. A little girl wearing a red hooded cape. Popping berries into her mouth. One leg kicked high behind her suggesting skipping motion while the basket in her hand swings jauntily. All in bright colors of teal and green and brown and red and yellow, a brilliant blend of warm and cool colors.

In the Hood
In my hood, skipping through the wood, carrying a basket, picking berries to eat — juicy and sweet what a treat! But a girl musn't dawdle. After all, Grandma's waiting.	After all, Grandma's waiting, mustn't dawdle... but a girl! What a treat — juicy and sweet, picking berries to eat, carrying a basket, skipping through the wood in my 'hood.

Illustrations by Josée Masse are bold, bright and gorgeous, cleverly bringing out the two perspectives of the reverso poems.

The six year old read it over and over. To hear the "yeah, I get it, mama!" after every poem that clicked was divine music to my ears. We read it together, discovering the perspectives. I loved reading this aloud to her as I could make dramatic pauses to bring out the differences that the same lines in reverse order presents.

This has become one of my all-time favorite books! (Nana, if you are reading this, we would like to add this to the Wish List)!

[Here's an interview with author Marilyn Singer about her creative process for this book].

---

Cat Poems
by Dave Crawley
illustrated by Tamara Petrosino

The two cats we adopted as tiny kittens nearly a decade ago are quite a source of entertainment and education for the kids at home.

Plus, of course, an assorted bunch of neighborhood cats stop by as often as they can as I am a soft-touch - I end up feeding them. Not just leftovers or cold milk that the kids didn't finish, but toasty warm milk - warmed up just for them now that it is winter - as soon as I spot them pawing the back door.

Which is all to say that we love cats. Cats are right up there with Horses, Ana's first favorite in the mammalia. So, this book of cat poems easily amused her.

The illustrations are funny and charming, complementing the poems well. Front and back inside covers have illustrations of the various popular variety of cats from Persian to Manx, Ragdoll to Siamese, Himalayan to American Shorthair (which is what our two kitties are, I think).

However, when she got past poring over the inside front cover, she still took her time over every poem, presented one per page - some short, some long, some in cartoon style panels and some as a sweet little story. The book seems like fitting kid-size tribute to these much misunderstood creatures.

Don't ever try to wash a cat.
It simply doesn't work.
If you should put her in the tub,
the cat will go berserk.

So true. And yet, until Ana actually tried to get one of our kitties in her bath, she did not know this. And since she has done it, she laughed out loud at this poem and and accompanying illustration.

Non-cat-lovers might be inclined to give this book a miss, but, the poems beautifully showcase the idiosyncrasies of cats, the fiercely proud and selfish yet cuddly and affectionate nature they choose to exhibit, and yet always manage to bring warmth into the people they live with.

---

Hooray for Inventors!
by Marcia Williams

From Gutenberg's Movable Type to Marconi's Radio, from Wright Borthers' Flying Machine to Thomas Edison's Light Bulb, the book is packed with information presented in a child-friendly cartoon format with colorful panels. The illustrations with conversations lean towards the comical, but each panel has the facts progressing along like a story.

Thanks to My Brother's Flying Machine we had read nearly a year ago, Ana enjoyed Wilbur and Orville Wright and their Fabulous Flying Machine section very much.

I found the Owl conversations around the edges on the borders of each page to be quite distracting, but Ana found them silly and entertaining. [Author's website is laid out much like the pages of her book - busy border, lots of color, conversational asides]

Back of the book has a page dedicated to Women Inventors, many of whom I am ashamed to admit, I had not heard of before. And finally in My Favorite Inventors Take A Bow section we learn about the author's favorite inventors.

This is not a book that can be read in a hurry. And not just once. It has to be consumed in small doses, maybe focusing on one invention/inventor at a time. A nice book to have handy for the curious mind.

---

A Horse in the House
and Other Strange But True Animal Stories
by Gail Ablow
illustrated by Kathy Osborn

Gail Ablow, an award-winning broadcast journalist shifted gears to present this collection of news stories about Animals (and Humans) Behaving Atypically. Facts from the news are spun into short one-page stories that are both amusing and outlandish.

The Donkey Wedding apparently took place in Magadi, a village near Bangalore, India, to invite the Water God Varuna to shower down rains to their drought-stricken place.

Eye-glasses for the near-sighted greyhound, an antenna implanted in a Secret Agent Acoustic Kitty's tail to transmit sounds as soft whispers, the now-famous relationship between Owen the baby hippo and Mzee ("old man" in Swahili) an old tortoise...

Each story is crisply told, peppered with just enough humor and drama to fascinate a six year old.

The illustrations by Kathy Osborn are vivid yet rather surreal, bold yet humorous.

Author's note at the back also lists the references to the news stories in the various publications that inspired this book.

A quirky book for the young reader who loves the bizarre as much as sugar and spice and everything nice.

[image source: amazon.com, and where possible from author/illustrator websites]

Three from the 3 yo

Of the several books we managed to read in the last few weeks, only a handful resonated with us, as usual. I enlisted the three year old's help to come up with three books that warranted a place in our Wish List.

Why three and only three? Well, it was just a whim. I rather liked the sound of "Three from the Three Year Old" as opposed to "Seven from the... or A Dozen from the..." I could always share the other wonderful books in a separate post :)

How did we arrive at these three? I resorted to the Optometrist style of refining by asking "Did you like Cat In The Hat Seeds or Ocean Babies better?" , "Inside, Outside, Upside, Down or The Big Honey Hunt?", "Mouse Count or Sneezy Louise?", holding the books up two at a time to get Og to pick the ones he favored most. I *might* have skewed the results a bit by asking leading questions, but, no matter.

The three books from the 3 yo also happens to appeal very much to the 6 yo. And to all ages, as a matter of fact.

Well, here they are, the list of books (in no particular order).

Calvin Can't Fly
The Story of a Bookworm Birdie

by Jennifer Berne
illustrated by Keith Bendis.

I think it is the comical colorful illustrations that appealed the most. Calvin is a brand new baby starling hatched along with his siblings and cousins.

While the others discover worms and dirt and water, Calvin discovers books.

While others dream about eating bugs, Calvin dreams about adventure stories and poetry.

While others learn to fly (with their teacher Mr.Wingstead), Calvin is busy in the library (which is inside the trunk of a large tree, with posted Hours and Nocturnal Hours by the arched doorway).

Finally, when it is time to migrate, Calvin hasn't quite mastered the art of flying, owing to lack of practical knowledge although he was brimming with theoretical details. His cousins end up towing him much to Calvin's embarrassment.

At this point, the parent radar started beeping when I read it for the first time: So, Calvin's love of books does not turn out well for him? I can't pass that message to my kids...

However, the message in fact turns out to be quite a (wild yet) positive one. Calvin, thanks to his bookish knowledge, manages to steer his whole migrating flock of fellow starlings away from danger. And they thank him profusely and throw a party in his honor.

Calvin's cousins call him names: "nerdy birdie", "geeky beaky", "bookworm". When you are a bird being called a "worm" is a very bad thing.

"We don't do name-calling, Mama, that's not okay. Calvin's cousins are mean to him." chime in Oggie and Ana every time we read this page. Another message registered.

And the heartwarming part is at the end when Calvin can actually fly! He never tried it before and therefore never knew he could do it. But once he tried it and practised hard, he flew just as well as the others who continued their journey of migration.

I ended up loving this book as much as (if not more than) Og.

Spoon

by Amy Krouse Rosenthal
illustrated by Scott Magoon

A charming little book by one of my favorite authors. Her Cookies book was Ana's favorite a few years ago, still picked up from our bookshelves on and off.

It amazes me to see Ms.Rosenthal do it over and over again: take a simple route to present a profoundly beautiful message without sermonizing, always gentle and tender, woven with humor and wit.

The message again is quite subtly yet clearly conveyed: Spoon is not satisfied with who he is. He longs to be like others. He sees them as having more fun. Knife gets to cut and spread. Fork gets to go practically everywhere. Everyone thinks chopsticks are cool and exotic.

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to Spoon, his friends rather envy him. Knife says, "No one is allowed to be silly with me." Fork is impressed as Spoon is used to measure out stuff. Nobody uses Fork to measure stuff.

Well, you get the idea. The book celebrates the individual and their unique traits that make them who they are, at the same time lets us see the flip-side to everything.

Spoon finally sees his own merits when his mom reminds him of all the things he can do. So, finally Spoon feels alive again, rather than mope around thinking of all the things he cannot do.

Some of the tongue-in-cheek wordplay in this book is probably lost on the 3 year old, who takes it at face value and laughs at the pictures and yet gets the message about why Spoon is special in his own way. A brilliant book for all ages.

The illustrations are funny and witty, with dark black line and greyish silvery look. The page with Fork having all the fun digging into a slice of cake, standing up with a forkful of salad, and esp., ready to delve into the pie was the kids' favorite. I liked the Spoon family photo where the spork is the black-sheep, rather a misfit. Would they welcome him in the Fork Family photo?

Mañana, Iguana (book+CD)

by Ann Whitford Paul
illustrated by Ethan Long

Bilingual books are fun. So are books with CD for read-along. Mañana, Iguana has both these features making it a recent favorite with all of us.

We learnt the days of the week in Spanish, as well as Yo Si (I will) and Yo No (Not I) thanks to conejo and culebra and tortuga.

Much like the classic folk tale The Little Red Hen, the story covers friendship, teamwork and not the least, contribute if you want the benefit of the labor.

On Monday (lunes), Iguana decides to throw a party for her friends the following Saturday (sabado). There are party invitations to be written and delivered, food to be prepared, decorarions to be hung.

Iguana asks her friends conejo (rabbit), culebra (snake) and tortuga (tortoise) for help. Predictably, they each have an excuse for every task. Rather than help out now, they say, "Mañana, Iguana" and while away their time.

Well, the rest of the story is apparent: the friends get a rude shock when they try to gate-crash Iguana's party, not being invited and not having helped host it. All's well that ends well. They realize the error of their ways and come through in the end.

The illustrations are vibrant with the Southwest landscape, complementing the story well, revealing Iguana's feelings at every turn. The repetitive response when Iguana solicits help and the distinct characteristics of the animals makes this a wonderful read-aloud book.

The timelessness of this story and the Spanish-learning opportunity appealed the most to me.

[image sources: www.ethanlong.com Long, www.scottmagoon.com, amazon.com]