Early Literacy Feeds

Book: Perfect Soup
Author: Lisa Moser
Illustrator: Ben Mantle
Pages: 40
Age Range: 3-8

In Perfect Soup, written by Lisa Moser and illustrated by Ben Mantle, Murray the mouse decides to make "Perfect Soup" on a cold winter day. However, the recipe for Perfect Soup includes a carrot. And Murray, alas, doesn't have a carrot. His neighbor, Farmer, has a carrot, but wants some logs hauled in return. As a mouse, Murray isn't able to haul the logs himself, so this sets him off on a whole string of barters. Meanwhile, the snowman outside of Murray's house makes ever-more-overt attempts to be friends with Murray. But Murray doesn't have time, because he's so busy with his quest for that carrot. In the end, of course, the two storylines come together, and Murray learns what "perfect soup", and friendship, really mean.

Although there is a bit of a lesson learned at the end of this book, Perfect Soup doesn't feel didactic. Murray is just this busy little guy, doing his best to make things perfect. And Snowman remains outgoing and friendly, despite Murray's initial neglect. The other people in the book, they want to help (mostly), but you know, life is tough. They can't give away something for nothing. Perfect Soup is as much about working for what you want as it is about taking time for your friends.

Moser does a nice job using words that are descriptive, without being overly intimidating, making this a nice read-aloud for preschoolers. Like this:

"Murray plodded down the road.
Snowman called out, "Stay and play!"

Murray shook his head. He didn't have time to play. He needed things to be perfect. Murray was in a hurry."

Later on, Snowman "plopped the snow into Murray's lap", and Murray plops that snow right into some overly-hot cocoa. Plodded and plopped both strike me as excellent read-aloud words. The shopkeeper has "spectacles", instead of glasses.

Mantle's illustrations are perfect for this book, too. He uses warm, vivid colors wherever possible, a nice contrast with the white of the snow-covered landscape. Murray's kitchen is delightful, with a round window, a cookie jar, and cabinets full of bright vegetables. Murray himself is small and intrepid, in his green-striped hat and scarf, and big smile. Snowman has rosy cheeks, a top-hat, and a red scarf that stands out against the snow. Mrs. Wooley's house is shaped like a teapot with a hat over it. Every page has a friendly feel, even those pages in which Murray suffers a setback and almost gives up.

Perfect Soup is an excellent choice for a mid-winter read, full of snow, cocoa, jingle bells, firewood, and evergreen trees. And, of course, hot, delicious soup. It's a book that will leave readers with a warm glow. Recommended for preschoolers and up, for home use or library/classroom read-aloud.

Publisher: Random House Books for Young Readers (@RandomHouseKids)
Publication Date: October 26, 2010
Source of Book: Library copy
Nominated for 2011 Cybils in Fiction Picture Books by: JoAnn Early Macken

© 2011 by Jennifer Robinson of Jen Robinson's Book Page. All rights reserved. This site is an Amazon affiliate, and purchases made through Amazon links may result in my receiving a small commission (at no additional cost to you).

A recently released children's book tells the story of how Duke Ellington brought swing to the holiday classic, 'The Nutcracker.' Also, Texan vampires go up against werewolves and were-armadillos in a popular young adult novel. These are just some of the books that top librarian Loriene Roy's list of holiday books. She speaks to host Michel Martin.

Investigators who this year found rampant cheating among Atlanta public school teachers and principals released another report on Tuesday detailing widespread wrongdoing in another Georgia county.

When Shandra Lindstrom began volunteering at Glen Acres Elementary in September, some of her students couldn't read a single page aloud. Months later, the students are flourishing. Lindstrom is one of 250 volunteers who took part in the Read to Succeed program this semester. The program was announced in August as a partnership between United Way of Greater Lafayette and Greater Lafayette Commerce.

Book: ZooZical
Author: Judy Sierra
Illustrator: Marc Brown
Pages: 40
Age Range: 3-8

ZooZical, written by Judy Sierra and illustrated by Marc Brown, is pure fun. The zoo animals are bored and surly as winter weather keeps visitors away. But when a young hippo proposes that they work together to put on a ZooZical, well, the whole tone of the zoo (and the book) changes. There are cleverly altered versions of classic tunes ("If you're hoppy and you know it...", "for he's a jolly gorilla", etc.). There are "posters and costumes and scenery galore." There are seals on a bus, going round and round. And, of course, the whole thing brings the crowds rushing back for a "magical, musical ZooZical night."

Sierra uses rhyming couplets and triplets (is that the right word?) throughout, adding variation in line lengths to keep things from being sing-songy. She uses plenty of active verbs, and doesn't shy from the occasional advanced vocabulary word. Like this:

"It was simply amazing what two friends could do
When they tapped, and they rapped, and they twirled on their feet.
All the animals rocked to the hip-aroo beat,
And slowly, the doldrums began to retreat."

Can't you just imagine turning on some music, and telling your three-year-old that you want "the doldrums to retreat"? The actual performances of the animals are a nice mix of expected and unexpected. Like this:

"Bears walked the tightrope with elegant ease,
Flamingos whizzed by on the flying trapeze,
Raccoons danced in pairs, baboons danced in troops,
And snakes joined the dances as live hula hoops."

Marc Brown's illustrations were created using gouache on "gessoed wood", which apparently gives the surface more texture. All of the pictures look like they are on a faintly cross-hatched background. Brown uses a wide palette of colors, and offers up an assortment of busy, smiling animals on virtually every page. One wouldn't quite call the animals realistically rendered (the elephants have blue and purple striped ears and trunks, for instance, and the baboons look an awful lot like people). But they'll be recognizable to young kids (for the most part), and they exude joy. The young hippo who starts the whole things off is particularly charming.

ZooZical is upbeat and witty, a fun read-aloud for the preschool and early elementary school crowd. It would be a particularly good choice to read right before the class play. Recommended for ages 3 to 8.

Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers (@RandomHouseKids)
Publication Date: August 9, 2011
Source of Book: Review copy from the publisher
Nominated for 2011 Cybils in Fiction Picture Books by: Maria Ciccone
Also reviewed by: rebeccareid

© 2011 by Jennifer Robinson of Jen Robinson's Book Page. All rights reserved.

The final budget deal funding the U.S. Department of Education through Sept. 30 of next year reflects the Obama administration's success in fending off House Republican efforts to scrap programs such as Race to the Top, Investing in Innovation, and School Improvement Grants, all administration priorities. But not everyone is happy about the choice to continue those programs, some of which reflect the administration's emphasis on competitive grants to finance education initiatives. House Republicans had pushed to eliminate such programs to make room for big, $1 billion increases to major formula-funded programs for disadvantaged children and students in special education.

A comprehensive alignment of preschool through third grade (P-3) education is critical in ensuring that children develop a solid foundation in literacy, math, and social-emotional skills, according to a new report that offers recommendations for high-quality P-3 initiatives. The Importance of Aligning Pre-K through 3rd Grade, released by the Pre-K Coalition, details best practices for improving early learning.

This may end up being the season of The Great Children's (e-)Book Debate. Now that e-readers are taking hold of the adult market, merchandisers are turning to the children's market. I asked Holly Kreider, director of early childhood literacy at Raising a Reader, for her thoughts on how a possible explosion in children's e-reading might, or might not, effect literacy. Among the youngest children Kreider echoed the American Academy of Pediatrics recommendation that those under 2 not be allowed screen time. For older children though, the answer is less clear.

As 2011 comes to a close, we took a few minutes to review the progress — and pitfalls — of early childhood education news over the year. So before we jump into another year of news and analysis, here's a look at some of the major stories featured on Early Ed Watch this year. The top stories include the Early Education Challenge, pushing quality in Head Start, Promise Neighborhoods, and more.

Book: Little Women and Me
Author: Lauren Baratz-Logsted
Pages: 320
Age Range: 12 and up

I found the premise of Lauren Baratz-Logsted's Little Women and Me compelling. A modern-day teenager named Emily March is given a school assignment to write about what she would change from a favorite book. As Emily is pondering which of the two travesties of her childhood favorite, Little Women, to write about, she is suddenly sucked into the book. It's Christmas Eve in the March home, and Emily finds that she is now the "Middle March", a fifth sister falling between Beth and Jo. She has no way to pull herself back out of the story, and finds herself with a sort of "story amnesia" that only allows her to predict some of the expected events.

Emily has to adjust to a life that isn't hers, about which she has only limited information, while also adjusting to the deprivations life in the 1800s (No Twitter! Unshaved legs!). She sets out to right one of the "wrongs" of the original books (keeping an eye out for Beth). But instead of working to help Jo end up with Laurie, Emily competes with Jo for Laurie's attention. I mean, who could resist?

I enjoyed this premise, and I thought that Emily was a strong, intriguing character. I like that although she had always admired Jo as a reader of Little Women, the two rub up against one another as sisters. I also thought that the ending was ingenious and appropriate.

I did, however, find Little Women and Me a bit slow-paced. This is probably a necessary evil for a book that's written to closely follow another, highly episodic book. But it took me quite a while to get through it. I'm not sure whether I would have enjoyed the book more if I had read Little Women more recently (it's been many years), or less (because there would have been more events in the plot that I would have seen coming). I am pretty sure that only fans of the original Little Women will be able to truly enjoy Little Women and Me (especially those who found certain plot elements frustrating).

Little Women and Me is an unusual mix as a novel. Part speculative fiction (as Emily tries to figure out how she can and can't influence the story, etc.), part historical fiction / time travel novel, part homage to a beloved classic, and part realistic story about sibling rivalries. I think that Baratz-Logsted does a good job of balancing these elements. She applies a relatively light touch to the "modern girl stuck in a prior time, with fewer creature comforts" aspect of the story, not letting that dominate. She provides a nuanced view of Jo, perhaps more so than the original book permits (no one sees your flaws like a competitive younger sister, after all). And she keeps the "how does this all work exactly" elements a lively thread throughout the book, but one that doesn't dominate the focus on the March family.

Little Women and Me is not going to be for everyone - it's a bit too quirky and episodic for that. But for fans of Little Women (particularly if they also enjoy modern YA fiction) for whom the idea of entering into (and possibly changing) the world of the March sisters sounds appealing, Little Women and Me is well worth a look. Highly memorable, too. I'll never look at Little Women (and one March sister in particular) quite the same way again.

Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Children's Books (@BWKids)
Publication Date: November 8, 2011
Source of Book: Review copy from the publisher

© 2011 by Jennifer Robinson of Jen Robinson's Book Page. All rights reserved. This site is an Amazon affiliate, and purchases made through Amazon links may result in my receiving a small commission (at no additional cost to you).

Book: Press Here
Author: Herve Tullet
Pages: 56
Age Range: 3 and up

Press Here by Herve Tullet is, quite simply, brilliant. It's an interactive picture book, despite having no flaps, tabs, or electronic elements. Instead, Tullet asks kids to suspend belief, and participate by pressing on dots, shaking the book, blowing on the book, etc. Each page includes a simple command, like:

"Press here and turn the page."

or

"Try shaking the book...just a little bit."

When the reader turns the page, his "actions" have caused something to happen (such as a previously ordered set of colored dots now being disordered, sprinkled about the page).

Although the text is brief, Tullet uses a friendly, conversational tone, preceding many of the instructions with "Well done!" or "Great!". I think that this friendly tone goes a long way towards explaining the appeal of this book. And let me tell you, the appeal is undeniable. Press Here is a great book for preschoolers, or older kids, or even adults. It beguiles readers of all ages into participating. I read this for the first time without a child around, but I still blew on the dots where instructed, and so on.

The illustrations in Press Here are quite simple. Each page has one or more colored dots, most about the size of a quarter, ever so slightly varied in shape and texture, just like real swirls of paint. The dots reminded me of the ones in Leo Lionni's Little Blue and Little Yellow, though Tullet's dots are not personified. Tullet sticks mostly to primary colors, and uses plenty of white space, giving Press Here a cheerful tone. There's no dust jacket, and the glossy pages are a bit thicker than those of most picture books, reinforcing the notion that this is a book to be played with, not passively read.

Press Here is inventive and engaging. It's a bit of a throwback, in the sense that it doesn't require any app-like gadgets, or flaps, or textures. But I think that's what makes it so lovely. Press Here encourages kids (and adults) to have fun with books, and to use their imaginations. What more can one ask of a picture book? Press Here would make a wonderful last-minute Christmas (or other holiday) gift for any household with kids over the age of 3. Highly recommended.

Publisher: Chronicle Books (@ChronicleBooks)
Publication Date: March 30, 2011
Source of Book: Bought it
Nominated for 2011 Cybils in Fiction Picture Books by: Deb Marshall
Also reviewed by: morninglightmama | Natalia | rebeccareid | scope notes

© 2011 by Jennifer Robinson of Jen Robinson's Book Page. All rights reserved. This site is an Amazon affiliate, and purchases made through Amazon links may result in my receiving a small commission (at no additional cost to you).

As the 3,919 students who participated in the first year of Indiana's new, wide-reaching school voucher program near the end of the first semester in their new schools, the program faces up to its next challenge: A state court hearing opens today on a lawsuit arguing the program violates Indiana's constitution.

New York elementary and middle school students this spring will face reading exams that last half an hour longer this spring, officials announced Monday. The exams will last three hours — up from 2 1/2 hours from this year's tests — and will take place over three days, instead of two, as previously announced.

Parents Kira Turner and Robert Butler know reading is important to learning, so they set aside time each night to read to their son, Dominic Butler, 4. The preschool Dominic attends, Discovery Gardens Preschool in Prescott, also takes part in a new Yavapai College program called Raising a Reader, which sends books home with students each week for parents to read to them, then return next week for new books.

Everyone knows that getting into private preschool in New York City can be absurdly cutthroat and wildly expensive, but getting into public pre-K is not any easier. For parents like us, options are limited. Private pre-K can run more than $30,000 a year at the fanciest schools. If home schooling is daunting, and if not schooling feels wrong, the only other choice, it seems, is to join the many parents who have taken matters into their own hands and formed co-ops.

Book: I Had a Favorite Dress
Author: Boni Ashburn
Illustrator: Julia Denos
Pages: 32
Age Range: 4 - 8

Boni Ashburn's two previous books, Over at the Castle and Hush, Little Dragon, are among my favorite read-alouds. Her newest book, I Had a Favorite Dress, is very different in tone and target audience. But it's a book that I appreciate a little bit more each time I read it, and one that I think will become a household favorite once Baby Bookworm is old enough to appreciate it.

I Had a Favorite Dress is about an elementary school age girl who has a favorite dress that she wears every Tuesday. When, as inevitably happens, her dress becomes too short, her mother challenges her to "Make molehills out of mountains", instead of complaining about the situation. While she doesn't exactly understand the analogy, this advice inspires the girl to ask her mother to turn the dress into a "new ruffly shirt". Which she wears every Wednesday, until ... the pattern repeats, until the precious dress is nothing more than a mere scrap of fabric.

The thing that I love most about this book is the rich vocabulary and internal rhyming that Ashburn uses. Like this:

"So I moaned and I groaned, I complained, distraught..."

"You're overwrought, dear, it's clear," Mama said.

and

"At first I felt tears till I shook my head clear
and showed my new problem to Mama dear."

and

"Because on Sundays, we go to Grandma's house with the white-on-white wall-to-wall carpet, and Grandma's eyebrows silently invite us to remove our shoes.

Until a Sunday, in the morn, when I found one sock, forlorn. Uh-oh!"

Anyone who can rhyme morn and forlorn in a children's picture book, and have it completely not feel contrived, is doing something right. This is a book that readers won't grow tired of. They'll find new connections in the text each time they read I Had A Favorite Dress.

It's also nice to see a book with a strong mother-daughter relationship, a book that encourages problem-solving, and a book that features, completely matter-of-factly, a non-white main character.

Julia Denos' illustrations "were made using watercolor, graphite, colored pencil, needle and thread, digital collage, and a bit of Photoshop here and there." It's an unusual mix, but one well-suited to a book about stitching things together. The dress is pretty and distinct, in all its forms, and the girl is stylish without being overly ornate or prissy (as is her mother, for that matter). The collage elements are intermittent, just enough to lend a certain three-dimensionality to the pictures.

I Had a Favorite Dress would be a perfect gift from mother to daughter (or daughter to mother, for that matter). It is clearly more of a girl book than a boy book (the very cover features an assortment of dresses). Because of this, it strikes me more as a book for one-on-one reads than for large group read-aloud, but I could be wrong about that (and would be interested to hear feedback from anyone who has read it in a group). In any event, I do think I Had a Favorite Dress would be wonderful to read aloud (as are Ashburn's other books), with the zippy language and selective use of rhyme. Recommended for readers in elementary school, and their parents.

Publisher: Abrams Books for Young Readers
Publication Date: August 1, 2011
Source of Book: Review copy from the publisher
Nominated for 2011 Cybils in Fiction Picture Books by: Maggie Lehrman
Also reviewed by: debnance | Natalia

© 2011 by Jennifer Robinson of Jen Robinson's Book Page. All rights reserved. This site is an Amazon affiliate, and purchases made through Amazon links may result in my receiving a small commission (at no additional cost to you).

Last November, I told you about the Kindergarten PAVEd for Success early literacy program in Mississippi, which a federal study had found could boost disadvantaged kindergarteners' literacy skills by as much as a month of schooling. Unfortunately, the latest follow-up report from the Regional Educational Laboratory Southeast, housed at the SERVE Center of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, has found that this early boost doesn't hold. The K-PAVE program trains teachers to build on the basic kindergarten curriculum over a 24-week period with a set of academically themed vocabulary words and activities, as well as interactive reading and adult-child conversations.

Various proposals in Gov. Terry Branstad's education reform blueprint are being run up the flagpole. Many Iowans appear to be saluting at least one: an effort to ensure that third-graders can read. The measure would require students to demonstrate proficiency in literacy before they can be promoted to fourth grade. But any investment that seeks to improve literacy should not automatically be focused on schools. In fact, money may be better directed toward the more than 500 libraries in Iowa communities which have seen state funding drastically reduced the last few years — even while usage increases. The majority of children who struggle with reading come from low-income families, and much of what libraries offer is free. They level the playing field so any family, regardless of income, has the opportunity to check out books for children to read.

Scholastic, the American publisher of the Harry Potter novels, is set to introduce another major successor to that blockbuster franchise by J. K. Rowling. "Infinity Ring," a seven-book series on time travel with an online game component, will begin its rollout in September. Like "The 39 Clues," the new series is intended for children ages 8 to 12 and will explore historical events in both the print books and online game. Scholastic's latest series will be released at a time when many preteenagers own or have access to e-readers. Children reading "Infinity Ring" could skip paper entirely, reading the books and playing the online game on a smartphone or a tablet.

As a book reviewer, I receive as many as 2,000 children's and teen books each year from publishers. In the midst of all of this reading, a few books for children and teens become my favorites each year. They're the ones that I found most memorable as a reader, reviewer and children's/teen librarian at a public library. This year, four books stand out from the crowd for me.