Skip to main content

From Story Time: Summer Week 8

 
Stories in the Park
Written by Robyn Wall
Illustrated by A.N. Kang
New York: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2024. Picture Book.

An art-loving spider learns about the joys and challenges of creativity. --Publisher

Stories in the Park
Written by Kathryn Otoshi
Illustrated by Bret Baumgarten
Novato, CA: Blue Dot Press, 2015. Picture Book.

Little hands can do so many wonderful things: plant ideas; lift spirits; stretch imaginations. This colorful concept book rouses children to use their hands for the good and reach for their dreams. --Publisher

Canopy Capers
By Sarah Kurpiel
New York: Rocky Pond Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2024. Picture Book. 

Our young narrator doesn't like itchy hats or cold wind, and she especially doesn't like going places she's never been before. But she reluctantly agrees to join her mom at an ice festival, where they watch sculptors chisel and drill until it's too cold to watch anymore. That night the girl discovers that she has lost the horse figurine she'd brought with her, and she wishes she'd never gone . . . until the next night, when they return to the festival and see what the artists have created: sparkling, glorious sculptures that feel a little like magic. One surprise in particular seems even more magical to the girl. The ice art will stay with her long, long after it has melted away. --Editor

Canopy Capers
Written by Lou Kuenzler
Illustrated by Julia Woolf
London: Faber and Faber Limited, 2022. Picture Book.

It seems Rosie is up to no good as she breaks into the houses of Bear, Flamingo and Snake, but when Officer Skunk catches her in the act all she has taken is junk! But Rosie has a plan to recycle these treasures and make something new... --Editor

Book Babies
By Sue Downing
New York: DK Publishing, 2022. Board Book. 

Everyone has a friend. The Starfish is friends with the Fish and the Shells are friends with the Whale. Even the Octopus has friends. --Editor









Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Review: Alice with a Why

Alice with a Why By Anna James New York: Penguin, 2026. Fiction. 240 pgs. In 1919, in the aftermath of the first World War, Alyce is living with her grandmother in the English countryside. Her grandmother, also named Alice, tells Alyce (with a y) stories from her childhood adventures in a wonderful land filled with white rabbits and mad hatters. Alyce doesn't really believe the silly stories, she just misses her father who was killed in the war. One day, Alyce receives a mysterious invitation to tea, and subsequently falls into a pond where she is transported to Wonderland. Her grandmother, of course, is that Alice. Alyce is prompted by the Mad Hatter, Dormouse, and March Hare to seek out the Time Being and put an end to the war between the Sun King and the Queen of the Moon. Thus begins Alyce's adventure through Wonderland. I have a certain soft spot for the original story of Alice in Wonderland. It is one of my particular favorites and I often have a hard time reading new int...

Review: A Strange Thing Happened in Cherry Hall

A Strange Thing Happened in Cherry Hall By Jasmine Warga New York: Harper, 2024. Fiction. 211 pages. A painting has been stolen from the Penelope L. Brooks Museum and sixth-grader Rami Ahmed is worried he's the main suspect. His mother works at the museum as the lead custodian and Rami spends a lot of time hanging out at the museum while she works. On the day the painting went missing, the only people there were the security guard Ed, the cleaning crew, and Rami. Then, a mysterious girl appears in the museum. She floats around from room to room and only Rami can see her -- and she looks exactly like the girl from the missing painting. To prove his innocence and help figure out who the floating girl is, Rami partners up with an aspiring sleuth at school named Veda and the two dive into unexpected situations as they try to solve the mystery. This is a cozy mystery that is focused mostly on characters and ambiance and only a little on the mystery itself. Don't read this book if yo...

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...