Skip to main content

From Story Time: Summer Reading Week 3

Image
By
Read at Stories in the Park

By Antoinette Portis
HarperCollins Publishers, 2006.  Picture Book.

A box is just a box...unless it's not a box. From mountain to rocket ship, a small rabbit shows that a box will go as far as the imagination allows.

Inspired by a memory of sitting in a box on her driveway with her sister, Antoinette Portis captures the thrill when pretend feels so real that it actually becomes real—when the imagination takes over inside a cardboard box, and through play, a child is transported to a world where anything is possible.

The simple text makes the book appropriate for toddlers, but the message and retro feel of the book also lead to it being an original and compelling gift to mark an occasion such as a graduation.  --Publisher




Read at Stories in the Park

Oh No! (Or How My Science Project Destroyed the World)
Written by Mac Barnett
Illustrated by Dan Santat
Disney Hyperion, 2010.  Picture Book.

Some kids are too smart for their own good...and maybe for everybody else's good. When an overly ambitious little girl builds a humongous robot for her science fair, she fully expects to win first place. What she doesn't expect is the chaos that follows.

Mac Barnett and Dan Santat combine forces to create a hilarious kid's eye account of the kind of destruction that comes only from a child's good intentions.  --Publisher





Read at Canopy Capers

By Mark Tatulli
Roaring Brook Press, 2018.  Picture Book.

When a spaceship lands on Earth, a small town launches into a frenzy.  Why did they come?  Everyone is warned to stay back!  But one child realizes something no one else does.  What do they want? As the spaceship door opens, the answer is revealed . . .  Why are they here?  And a small boy with a big heart shows how unexpected visitors can also be surprisingly sweet.  Mark Tatulli, a comic artist and the creator of Lio and Heart of the City, uses bold colors and modern art in They Came, a charming tale about acceptance, sharing, and speaking up for what is right.
--Publisher




Read at Canopy Capers

By Matthew McElligott
Walker & Company, 2012.  Picture Book.

Snack time is the best part of the day...in any universe!  When a young chef whips up his favorite, unusual treats to share with his family and neighbors, no one will touch them.  Discouraged, he closes his snack stand and gives up.  But when his first customer appears after the moon rises, he realizes he was just open at the wrong time of day.  As word spreads to every corner of the galaxy, his line starts to stretch across the evening sky.  Pleasing intergalactic taste buds isn't easy, but after all, even aliens need snacks...  

Readers will delight in McElligott's gently offbeat humor and unique artistry as spaceships full of hilarious creatures line up for a taste of the intergalactic cuisine.  --Publisher




Read at Book Babies

Written by Jennifer Adams
Illustrated by Ron Stucki
Gibbs Smith, 2014.  Picture Book.

Once upon a midnight dreary...  Little Edgar the Raven is having a tough time minding his mother.  Dinnertime, cleanup-time, and bedtime are all met with one word --"NEVERMORE!"  From drawing on his bedroom walls with crayons to chasing his sister with a scarecrow, this mischievous and disobedient little bird would much rather do anything than behave.  But as the evening winds to a close, Edgar's mom knows just what to do to get her son into bed.

Charmingly simple text paired with captivating gothic-era illustrations give a sly wink to Edgar Allan Poe's popular poem "The Raven."  Edgar Gets Ready for Bed will have little literature lovers saying "MORE! MORE!"  --Publisher
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

If You Like...KPop Demon Hunters

By
KPop Demon Hunters has been one of the most talked-about movies of the summer. If you loved this movie as much as I did, you don't want the magic (or the music) to stop. Try reading these books that touch on some of the same topics and themes as the animated hit! Brick Dust and Bones By M. R. Fournet New York: Feiwel and Friends, 2023. Fiction. 247 pages. Orphaned Marius works in the family business--as their cemetery's ghost caretaker. However, Marius also moonlights as a monster hunter in order to earn the costly Mystic currency he needs to bring his mother back from the dead. As the window to bring his mother back begins to close, Marius's exploits get more and more dangerous, and he may have set his sights on a monster too big to handle on his own. Like Mira, Marius longs for familial connection, and his work as a monster hunter will satisfy the thrill of demon hunting for fans the movie. Where's Halmoni? By Julie J. Kim Seattle, WA: Little Bigfoot, 2017. Comics. W...
Post a Comment
Read more

Review: The Teacher of Nomad Land

By
The Teacher of Nomad Land: A World War II Story By Daniel Nayeri Montclair, NJ: Levine Querido, 2025. Historical fiction. 181 pgs. In 1941 Iran, 13-year-old Babak will do anything to stay with his younger sister Sana, who is 8. After their father is killed during the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran, the siblings are left orphaned and Babak takes over guardianship to prevent the two from being separated. Carrying his father's blackboard on his back, Babak and Sana set off from Isfahan to find the nomadic tribes as they make their yearly trek across the mountains. Along the way, they encounter a suspicious man named Vulf, a friendly Englishman with a name that means cabbage, and a Jewish boy named Ben who has Vulf hot on his heels. As he is known for doing, Daniel Nayeri weaves a highly readable adventure with threads of philosophy about God, the ties of family, and musings about how cultures can reconcile across differences. The setting of this novel is ingeniously unique, and a lengt...
Post a Comment
Read more

Review: The Factory

By
The Factory By Catherine Egan New York, NY : Scholastic Inc., 2025. Fiction. 306 pages.  Thirteen-year-old Asher Doyle has been invited to join the Factory, a secretive research facility in the desert which ostensibly extracts renewable energy from the electromagnetic fields of its young recruits. But Asher soon realizes something sinister is going on. Kids are getting sick. The adults who run the Factory seem to be keeping secrets. And the extraction process is not only painful and exhausting, but existentially troubling. Asher makes a handful of new friends who help him with an investigation that turns into a resistance, which turns into...a cliffhanger! The Factory is a page-turning sci-fi with multidimensional characters, an intriguing plot, and refreshingly straight-forward writing. Egan weaves in detail about climate crises and social unrest, making the story's dystopian setting feel rich and plausible. With its sophisticated themes and accessible storytelling, I would recomm...
Post a Comment
Read more