DIY Story Time: The Letter "A"

DIY Story Times begin next week, and here are three great books to check out for "A" week!

Written by Alison Donald

Illustrated by Alex Willmore

Maverick Arts Publishing Ltd., 2019. Picture Book.

Alfred is a bull, and bulls are reliable and dependable. When his best friend Tom wants to bring home a new, adorable pet, Alfred realizes he may need to up his game if he wants to stay number one in Tom's heart. But can bulls be adorable too? --Publisher

Apples For Little Fox

By Ekaterina Trukhan

Random House Children's Books, 2017. Picture Book.

Fox loves to read mysteries—he wants to be a detective someday! He goes to the library every morning and collects delicious apples to eat on his way home. But one day, all the apples are missing! What could have happened to them? Fox is so excited to crack his first case. Follow along as he searches for clues and discovers a BIG surprise! --Publisher

Aliens Love Underpants

Written by Claire Freedman

Illustrated by Ben Cort

Simon & Schuster, 2007. Picture Book.

When little aliens fly down to Earth, they're not visiting because they want to meet the Earthlings. They simply want to steal everybody's underpants! Those silly aliens love underpants in all sizes and colors--large or small, red or green--and they like them in every kind of fabric. They think that Mom's pink, frilly panties are a perfect place to hide. And Grandpa's woolly long johns make a super-whizzy slide! Guaranteed to get little readers (and big readers, too) laughing out loud! --Publisher

Comments

Review: The Factory

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...

Review: Blood in the Water

Blood in the Water By Tiffany D. Jackson New York: Scholastic, 2025. Fiction. 255 pages. 12-year-old Kaylani McKinnon can't help but feel like a fish out of water. She's a Brooklyn girl spending her summer on Martha's Vineyard surrounded by wealthy family friends in their mansion. All she really wants is to stay home all summer where she her incarcerated father can easily reach her, and she can keep working to find ways to prove him innocent of fraud and embezzlement. Despite her protests, she finds herself on the island with the snooty granddaughters of her host. Soon after Kaylani's arrival, a popular teen boy is found murdered and she decides to conduct her own investigation. As she tries to discover what happened to Chadwick Cooper, Kaylani finds that not everything on Martha's Vineyard is as perfect as it appears. Thrillers for middle grade readers can be hard to find, but Tiffany D. Jackson succeeds in her first middle grade novel. A quick moving plot, tight d...

National Geographic Book of Animal Poetry

National Geographic Book of Animal Poetry Edited by J. Patrick Lewis National Geographic, 2012, 183 p. Poetry In this beautiful poetry collection, the National Children's Poet Laureate, J. Patrick Lewis, has teamed up with the amazing photographers at National Geographic. The result is 200 poems about animals, all illustrated with stunning nature photography. The poems are well chosen and include rhyming, free verse, and shape poetry. Some of the poems are funny, many are contemplative and all are nicely typeset on top of the full color photographs. One of my favorites is a shape poem about flamingos, with a photograph of a flock of flamingos which seem to be standing the the shape of a flamingo (how did they do that?). Lewis ends the collection with a brief but interesting section about writing animal poetry. This selection is sure to turn any animal lover into a poetry lover.

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