Provo Library Children's Book Blog

If you have a young child who will be riding the bus to school for the first time this fall, please read this book to them. The Bus Stop is a simple story about different children all having their first experience riding the bus. They each bring something from home to take to school. This is common, as familiar things bring comfort to children who are doing something for the first time. Stoeke's well written text is in rhyme: "Miranda Cook has a library book . . . " The illustrations show the children walking to school with a parent (Thank you, Janet, for including a dad!). I like that Stoeke included the bus driver. She has a verse all to herself: "Mrs. Simpson-Russ got a brand-new bus." In the end, the bus, which took them all away from home to school, brings them back again, safe and sound.

WHISPERS IN THE GRAVEYARD ; Theresa Breslin; London: Egmont, 2007; 182p. Juvenile/Young Adult fiction. Solomon is dyslexic, the butt of jokes from classmates and an abusive teacher. His mother has left; his father is alternately a cheerful pal and a mean drunk, and he takes such solace as he can find in the graveyard among the cool shadows and ancient stones. But one part of the cemetery is frightening beyond the usual--nothing lives there except an ancient rowan tree, no birds, no flowers, nothing. When workers come through to move the bodies to make way for a diversion canal, they pull up the rowan, and something is unleashed. Is it the smallpox that killed many of the people buried there? or something older and even more ominous? Whispers in the Graveyard is intense and frightening, a good choice for older elementary age children and young adults who ask for something "really scary." The book has just a bit of strong language, but also many good messages: hard things can ...

Class Two at the Zoo by Julia Jarman is an entertaining book about a field trip to the zoo gone wrong. Throughout the book the animals act so silly that the class doesn’t keep an eye on the anaconda sneaking up behind them until it is almost too late. It is up to brave Molly to save the day. This book is great for any child who loves animals, the zoo, or simply a silly story. The illustrations are great! While reading, make sure you pay special attention to the animals in the background.

Circles, squares, triangles, rectangles, and even semicircles are presented in this colorful, bouncy, rhyming book. Each shape gets shaken out of a box and a group of multicultural children play and demonstrate different things you can do with that shape. The rhyming text is simple, yet fun and active. The last few pages are pictures made up of all the shapes forming various things; rockets, dragons, boats, and race cars. Falwell does a wonderful job with cut paper, paint, and ink. Her writing is engaging for young readers. A great book, not only for teaching shapes, but for developing phonemic awareness as well.

In a beautiful and charming retelling of an Aesop's fable, the sun and the wind argue over who is the strongest. They decide to challenge each other to see who can take the coat off a traveling man. The wind blows his very hardest and coldest and the sun shines warmly. Who do you think wins the contest? With beautiful, unique, and vibrant illustrations, the story really comes to life. This is a fun story about how force is not necessarily the best way to achieve one's goals.

BUSTER GOES TO COWBOY CAMP ; Denise Fleming; New York: Holt, 2008; unpaged. Picture Book When Brown Shoes leaves town for the weekend, Buster has his choice of staying with Mrs. Pink Slippers (who loves cats) or going to Cowboy Camp. He chooses Camp only as the lesser of two evils and is not comforted by Mr. Red Boots kindness, nor by the snoring, drooling dog in the next bunk. His bed is lumpy, things don't smell right, and he misses Brown Shoes and Betty. But soon Buster makes friends, does paw painting with the other dogs, accidentally has fun playing catch, and eats beans and bacon for supper. Buster has such a good time, in fact, that pretty soon he is the dog dreaming, snoring, and drooling. Fleming's bright Southwestern colors, and funny little canines make Buster the cowpoke a delightful exemplar of what can happen when you have to to Something New.

NEVER TEASE A WEASEL ; Jean Conder Soule; illus. by George Booth; New York: Random House, 2007; unpaged. Picture book. George Booth is one of the all-time great cartoonists of this or any age, so what a treat it is to have Jean Soule's classic text reissued in company with Booth's hilariously scraggly mules and moose, and his toothy, soulful frogs. Soule's jouncy text is a delight as well, as she tells interested children all the things one may do with other animals ("You could give a mule a pool/And some jaunty swimming trunks, Send a case of Spanish lace/To a pair of lady skunks"), but always with the warning that you mustn't tease a weasel "not even once or twice. A weasel will not like it--And teasing isn't nice!"