WooHoo! #PB10for10 2017

      It's PictureBook10for10 (#PB10for10) where many share ten picture books that are Must Haves! Cathy Mere of Reflect and Refine: Building a Learning Community and Mandy Robek of Enjoy and Embrace Learning host this wonderful tradition. Here's how! 

I've posted more than once with Cathy and Mandy, and the only thing that scares me is how much my TBR list will grow. I read a lot of picture books and it's a surprise that I learn about more while reading everyone's posts. Thanks, Cathy and Mandy, this is a tradition I look forward to every year!

Here are my previous posts for   2011     2012     2013     2014     2015    2016  

I chose recent books this year, choosing those that I loved so much that I had to own them, either for myself or for my granddaughters, eight and six years.

Here's the list! I've written a bit about each. An FYI - I had 15 on my list, and it was tough to eliminate five! I appreciate authors and illustrators who are creating these lovely, lovely stories. Each of these first seven are nostalgic, at least to me. They focus on loving life during the day, in the nighttime, with friends, being kind. Those are important to me more than ever lately.

            With pen swirls of color and cut-outs blended into a garden of flowers, a tree, a bird feeder, Lane Smith has published another favorite picture book and it is a gem. Cat, Dog, Chickadee and Squirrel are having the “perfect day” until one more animal arrives. And then, Bear has his own perfect day. It’s all about perspective. I loved viewing each page, but think at least one favorite is the squirrel’s feelings while holding a whole cob of corn! Fun story, beautiful book.

       The sweetest goodnight book, a perfect book for younger children. Young Lala is putting off her bedtime by saying good night to the usual things like her cat, the fish her papa caught, the goat. She gets quite creative as she tries to gain a little more time before bed and also says good night to the chickens, the little ants, her dog. Finally, into bed, a surprise that I won't give away. The full-page illustrations show evening colors, first bright, slowly darkening. It's lovely! 

            There are ways to rise and greet the sun each day, and there are other ways. Cynthia Rylant’s few words show us wise advice from some animals who respond to her question, “What do you love about life?” They answer differently from humans, perhaps, like she writes that a hawk would say “sky”, yet all those special things can be for humans, too, if we only notice. Ups and downs in life may come, feeling like a wilderness, yet hope is there. Brendan Wenzel includes the vision of Rylant’s words in his exceptionally lovely attention to nature’s details. It’s a wonderful book, a gift for all ages!

           While I love sweet stories, there aren't many that bring a lump to my throat, and this by Kate Klise is one. Astrid is born in the household where Eli, the dog, lives. She grows up with him, but for every year she grows, he grows six or seven. He's getting old. They do many things together, and when Astrid realizes that Eli is aging, she creates a bucket list of things for him to do before he's too old, like going down a slide and riding behind her on her bike. There is more, in addition to a final one decided by Eli. Yes, we hear his thoughts too, which makes him just like all pets, almost human, right? It's a beautiful story, illustrated with a warm, realistic feeling by Kate's sister, M. Sarah Klise

         It's a new favorite story from Susanna Isern and translated from Spanish by Jon Brokenbrow. This lonely mailman delivers mail each day to all the forest friends, although he never receives any himself, until it changes. . . Beautifully shared in a solemn way: that’s just as it is! But one day something different happens and that has all of us readers smiling. There are delightful parts of the story that are slyly put into the illustration by Daniel Montero Galán if you pay very close attention. It's a terrific book!

       

           Freedman writes that it's just right for showing what a home is, starting with “this door was once a colossal oak tree/about three hugs around/and as high as the blue”. There is more about the source of the stone, the bricks, and the roof until a sweet cat and a young child reading under the stairs inhabit “This House”. It’s a beautifully wrought invitation that asks about one’s own house, too. Illustrations explore the words in soft colors that move through the seasons until spring, declaring that the house remembers, too.
          I remember houses in my growing up, and those I lived in with my husband, what we did to make them special for us. Here is one. We bought a house lakeside once, that had started out as a small cabin, that "inner room with a fireplace." The part I know about this house, ONCE was that the people who built it used stones from the lake's edge to build the floor to ceiling fireplace. It was gorgeous. By the time we moved there, the inner part was surrounded by bedrooms and baths, two porches and a kitchen. We added a deck and a new dock for our boat. Lake living was our home, once. 

        Do I have a favorite of all the ones I'm sharing. Perhaps it is this one, one you mustn't miss. It's simply wonderful, as many have already shared. I will not tell too much of this story, want you to experience it yourself if you haven’t already. It, with the illustrations, is one to savor again and again. It’s historical, it’s loving, and while it holds great tension, it ends just right.

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I couldn't leave out the poetry. Among other great ones, three new favorites came out this year! All will make terrific mentor texts!

         Amy's most recent book celebrates twenty everyday birds in poetry is perfect to help young children begin their journey to knowing and loving birds. Each page gives the bird's name, and its identifying characteristic behavior or sound becomes the memory of what they do. The illustrator Dylan Metrano's cut paper illustrations give a perfect bird's eye view of each bird's look. You can see from the cover how clear it would be to identify a bluebird from that picture, and inside, Amy writes: "Bluebird sleeps at meadow's edge." Each four line stanza in rhyme includes four birds, four pages, simply done, beautifully presented.  And the poem is given at the end in its entirety. It's a book that will begin some real bird love to young children.

         Written by Laura Purdie Salas and illustrated by Jaime Kim. I adore it, not least because it's about one of my favorite topics, the moon! I've done moon journaling with students before, observed it, written about it, created art and wrote poetry inspired by it. Oh, how I wish I'd had this book to enhance our learning!
           Laura's moon observations poetically call upon factual observations in moon-colored, orange lettering that swirl across the pages and the facts from those observations are given in brief paragraphs enclosed by {curly brackets}. If you were the moon, you would "spin like a twilight ballerina." Or, you would "hide in the shadows." It's difficult to choose a favorite, but among all the pages, I smiled a lot when I turned the page to "Catch and throw. Catch and throw." This creative line explains how the moon takes light from the sun and reflects it back to earth. Facts are interpreted in clever ways, with an ending that will satisfy everyone no matter how old. Even the front and back cover is "moon-filled". 
         It may be a challenge illustrating these moon "facts". After all, the moon mostly is something we watch when it is dark. Jaime Kim's illustrations fill the dark pages with gorgeous night skies and nighttime scenes. They are gorgeous.

            Elaine Magliaro is especially talented in showing what any object thinks, or does, in poetic ways. 
This time, her poems are about everyday objects and what they do when we look at them through their eyes. Catia Chien creates dreamy illustrations for each double-page spread. Elaine begins to show us wonders with the day's beginning, She begins each part with "Things to do if you are. . ." 
This first page shows "Things to do if you are Dawn" and begins "SHOO away the night." Sunlight streams through a window as a young child opens curtains to greet the day. Seeing this, you know it's going to be an exciting journey throughout the day. I won't reveal the last page, but it ends this beautiful day, of course, with the moon. 

        My bonus, adding this one because I won a copy, and Matt has signed it for my granddaughters, AND because it's not out till early September AND it's fabulous. You will want to find and read this one! I haven't reviewed it yet, but will late in the month. Here's the cover and my grandgirls reading and loving this book!

Thanks for reading. I hope you find a book or more than one to love as I have!