It's Monday - Reading This Week

           Link up with Jen at TeachMentorTexts and Kellee and Ricki at Unleashing Readers. Sheila at Book Journeys started a meme to share all kinds of books read each Monday, then Kellee, Ricki and Jen formed theirs for only children's lit. Come visit, and tweet at #IMWAYR.

          I’m so fortunate that my library almost always has the books I want. Here are a few that I’ve managed to check out and read recently. Happy Reading this week!

What Forest Knows - written by George Ella Lyon and illustrated by August Hall

            Poetic words by George Ella Lyon, beautiful illustrations by August Hall create a book of seasons in a forest, a book to keep in the classroom and read at each appropriate time. For winter: “Forest knows waiting, holding on.”  and “Forest knows waking, opening up.”  This book's "look" reminds me of Winter Is Coming by Tony Johnston and Jim LaMarche

The Way Back Home - written by and illustrated by Oliver Jeffers

             Funny how we all know that we should help each other any way we can, but do children know to do that? This story is an adventure of a little boy on earth, who finds an airplane in his closet, and takes it for a spin. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) he ends up out of fuel on the moon! And a little Martian ends up crash landing with a broken spaceship. How they get out of their dilemma, AND help each other is lovely. The story will begin a good conversation to a group about fear of the unknown and cooperation.

What If…? - written by and illustrated by Anthony Browne

          Anthony Browne has the imagination of a child, and this book shows it beautifully! Joe has been invited to a birthday party, but lost the invitation. He and his mother do know the street where his friend Tom lives, and they tramp up the street, peering into each house, trying to figure out which is the right one. Ha! What delightful, and sometimes scary, surprises are in those houses, and as they walk along, Joe shares some worries, like “what if I don’t like the food?” or “What if they play scary games?” Everyone will want to talk after reading this book, and there is a lovely surprise at the end.

A bean, a stalk, and a boy named Jack – written by William Joyce and illustrated by Kenny Callicutt

         This caught my eye at the library, especially because a new book is coming by Liesl Shurtliff, titled Jack: The True Story of Jack and the Beanstalk. Remember Rump? This "A Bean..." book was published last year. The author has changed the story quite a bit, to a kingdom with magic, and a drought. Jack saves the community instead of his family, and makes a friend of a princess and the green bean stalk. There is a giant boy, but we never see the rest of the family, and there isn’t much that’s scary. Sometimes a ‘fractured fairy tale’ is so different that one yearns for the original, as I did this time.

Still reading: Port Chicago 50 and have started The True Blue Scouts of Sugarman Swamp. Both are great in their own unique ways.