Dan Yaccarino – Mom Read It

When Bear meets Goldilocks, a big mess ensues!

Posted on July 26, 2025July 25, 2025 by Rosemary Kiladitis

Bear and the Three Goldilocks, by Patrick Horne/Illustrated by Dan Yaccarino, (July 2025, Holiday House), $18.99, ISBN: 9780823455522

Ages 4-8

This flipped fairy tale serves as a cautionary tale when going camping. The Goldilocks family – Mr. Goldilock, Mrs. Goldilock, and Goldie Goldilock – head to the campground for a family trip, but sharp-eyed readers will see that the family is being watched by a curious bear, who wanders to their camp when the family goes for a hike. He samples their s’mores – too gooey, too chocolatey, juuuust right – and finishes the rest of the food, too; after all, “that’s how bears roll”. Bear tries out the family’s instruments, and finally, makes himself at home in Goldie’s tent, where he falls asleep. Baby Bear’s family arrives on the scene as the Goldilocks family discovers the mess, but as the family doesn’t understand bear language, Mr. and Mrs. Bear’s apologies and an invitation to come to their house for some porridge doesn’t go over well. The moral of the story: put your food in bear-proof containers when camping! Yaccarino’s illustrations are wonderful and have little details to enjoy, from Bear peeking out of the trees as the family arrives to a wolf confronting a young girl with a red hood at the story’s close. Horne’s storytelling makes for a funny, casual readaloud that will keep readers giggling. Pick this one up for your storytime collections.

Terry Pierce’s board book, Eat Up, Bear! is another fun story about campground safety; my interview with Terry also includes links to keeping campers and bears safe.

professional development

Good for Parents & Professional Development: How to Raise a Reader

Posted on September 6, 2019September 5, 2019 by Rosemary Kiladitis

How to Raise a Reader, by Pamela Paul & Maria Russo/Illustrations by Vera Brosgol, Lisk Feng, Monica Garwood, & Dan Yaccarino, (Sept. 2019, Workman), $19.95, ISBN: 978-1523505302

I like finding good books to recommend to parents and to add to my own professional development, so I picked up How to Raise a Reader. Written by two editors of The New York Times Book Review, How to Raise a Reader is all about inspiring parents, caregivers, and educators to promote a lifetime love of reading. Organized into four parts – Born to Read, Growing a Reader, Your Middle-Grade Reader, and A Reader for Life, with a fifth section providing book suggestions by themes and reading levels (not A-Z, more like age and grade) – this is a handy Readers’ Advisory volume to have at your fingertips, and a good suggestion to hand parents who want to work toward growing their own readers. There’s advice, tips and facts about early childhood learning, and booklists, booklists, booklists. Illustrated in full-color by popular children’s book illustrators, this is a book that will make you fall in love with reading again, too. It’s easy to read; easily skimmed if you need to look for one specific section or booklist; and filled with an upbeat, positive attitude: you can do this! You can get kids to love books!

Never overwhelming, the information is presented in easily digestible sections and fact boxes. Get yourself a desk copy to keep on hand, and consider adding this to your parenting sections. And encourage those parents when they come in, looking scared and lost. Remind them that reading kids’ books is fun, and tell them that they should never feel bad about reading along with their kids, too! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had a parent confide that they “aren’t really readers”, or “haven’t picked up a book in SO long”. Kids’ books are the best way to get back into reading – let this book and your expertise be the pep talk bewildered or just plain tired caregivers need.

Toddler Reads

Retro Review: Nick Jr’s Oswald’s A Nice Quiet Picnic/The Big Parade

Posted on February 24, 2014 by Rosemary Kiladitis

Oswald (A Nice Quiet Picnic/The Big Parade). Directed by Ken Kessel. NickJr, 24 minutes. HIT Entertainment PLC, Nicktoons Productions. 2001

Toddlers and Preschoolers will love the early 2000’s cartoon, Oswald, based on the series of books by Dan Yaccarino. The show ran on Nicktoons from 2001-2003; parents can still find the show on the NickJr channel. Yaccarino served as producer on the show, assuring that the look and feel of the books carried over. Each episode runs approximately 24 minutes and contains two episodes that run about 12 minutes each.

The show follows the adventures of Oswald, an octopus, and his friends in the city of Big. Each episode contains the same characters: Oswald (voiced by Fred Savage), his dachshund, Weenie, who looks like an actual hot dog (voiced by Debi Derryberry), and his friend, Henry, a penguin (voiced by David L. Lander) appear in every episode. Other friends show up from time to time. In the episode A Nice Quiet Picnic, Oswald, Henry and Weenie go on a picnic; as more friends show up, the group tries to figure out how to feed everyone when there are only three sandwiches. The episode highlights the value of sharing, as Oswald continues to invite friends to the picnic as he encounters them in the park, despite Henry’s protests that there is not enough food to feed everyone; it also focuses on teamwork, as the group of friends comes together to feed everyone at the picnic. There are repetitive phrases and counting exercises throughout for toddler and preschool audiences, and simple songs round out the episode.

In The Big Parade, Oswald hears parade music from his window and is excited, believing that a parade is coming to town. He and Weenie fetch Henry and their friend, Daisy (voiced by Crystal Scales) – an actual Daisy flower – and find a spot to wait for the parade to pass, talking excitedly about their favorite parade performers; in particular, the acrobats, the jugglers, and the Grand Marshall. When they learn that there is no parade, and that the music was coming from a friend’s radio, they decide to make their own parade, each character assuming their favorite role. As with A Nice Quiet Picnic, there is a great deal of repetition, this time, reinforcing the roles of the parade performers. The episode teaches children to deal with disappointment, as the group does when they realize that there is no parade – they turn a letdown into a positive situation.

The artwork is the same as the artwork from the Oswald book series, with bright, vibrant color against a calm backdrop of City. The skies are blue, the grass is a calming green, and even Oswald’s apartment building is an inviting backdrop of light color, all assuring that the main characters will stand out. The characters speak calmly, in quiet, soothing voices.

The series is not very interactive, but it does provide good storytelling with characters that may be known to young audiences; it also serves, for those audiences that are unfamiliar with Oswald, as a bridge to reading the books. It may be a fun idea to have an Oswald day where audiences can view a two-story episode and talk about the themes of teamwork and what to do when you feel sad. Have Oswald books available and on display for parents and children to read and take out after the read-aloud. There are Oswald board books available for younger audiences. The Oswald mini-site on the NickJr. webpage offers printables that attendees could color.

NickToons and the now-defunct Noggin network also ran episodes of Maurice Sendak’s series, Little Bear and Bil Cosby’s Little Bill; these shows were based on series of books and could also be of interest to younger viewers and readers.

The Oswald series of books by Dan Yaccarino includes early readers, board books, and 8×8 books. Titles include Oswald’s Camping Trip; Counting with Oswald; Colors with Oswald and Henry’s First Haircut.

Fantasy, Preschool Reads

Book Review: Doug Unplugged, by Dan Yaccarino (Knopf, 2013)

Posted on January 15, 2014 by Rosemary Kiladitis

Recommended for ages 4-8

This fun, retro story by Dan Yaccarino tells the story of a little robot boy who decides to “unplug” one day and explore the world. Little Doug is a robot boy whose parents plug him in every day so that he can learn while they head to work. One day, while learning about the city, Doug spies a pigeon at his window, and he’s fascinated. He unplugs himself and heads off on a day of exploration where he rides the train, scales a skyscraper, and makes a friend. After reuniting his friend with his parents, Doug decides to head home and tell his parents about his exciting day.

The story is sweet and packs a powerful message in our highly technological society. When most of our kids spend their days behind their iPads and computer screens, this simple message – unplug and learn by getting outside and doing – is a welcome sigh of relief. Packed with Yaccarino’s fun, adorable retro-futuristic artwork, Doug is a little boy on a big adventure that kids will enjoy living through vicariously. He may be a robot, but he’s easily distracted – there are many kids who can relate to the excitement of a pigeon landing on the windowsill at school or while doing homework at home. He spends a day exploring the city, yet manages to find a friend, and knows that he must go home at the end of the day. The art consists primarily of blues, greens and yellows, with other colors showing up to punch up the landscape. I read the digital version of this book, but encourage adult readers to use the physical storybook, which has smaller black font (it’s a great read-aloud book), usually at the bottom of the page or individual pictures so as not to detract from the artwork. There are whole spreads and chunked panels throughout the book, giving a fully-fleshed-out feeling to this story.

This would be a fun addition to a storytime on robots and would provide a more human perspective on a robot read-aloud. There are many robot printables and crafts online, and the author’s website offers information about his books, blog, social media, and speaking engagements.