Tag: rabbits

Posted in picture books, Preschool Reads

Fair Shares teaches kids about equity

Posted on by Rosemary Kiladitis

Fair Shares, by Pippa Goodhart/Illustrated by Anna Doherty, (Jan. 2020, Kane Miller), $$12.99, ISBN: 9781684640485

Ages 3-7

Hare and Bear both want some of the tasty-looking pears in a tree, but can’t reach. Hare finds three chairs, but Bear says it’s unfair if Hare takes two chairs, to Bear’s one – but once they’re on the chairs, Bear is the only one that can reach! Luckily for Hare, Beetle steps in and explains that “giving everybody the same thing isn’t always fair”. Whew! Bear realizes that Hare really does need two chairs to reach the pears. Now, what does Beetle want to eat?

Originally published in the UK in 2019, Fair Shares is a beautifully smooth and straightforward explanation of equity, Fair Shares teaches readers of ALL ages that equal doesn’t always mean fair. Bear, who towers over Hare, only needs one chair to reach the pears. With just one chair, Hare is still struggling. Once Bear realizes this simple fact, he’s happy to let Hare get his share. The digital artwork is wonderfully textured, and Anna Doherty’s scanned ink and pencil textures give the story a lovely fall feel, with deep reds, greens, and yellows, and a fuzzy Hare and furry Bear. The ending will surprise and delight readers. Beautifully done, and an essential book to keep on hand.

Free Spirit Publishing has an article, with additional book suggestions, on teaching kids the difference between fair and equal. Teachers Pay Teachers has several free, downloadable classroom printable posters that explain and illustrate equity, including this one from the National Alliance for Partnerships in Equity, this equity classroom poster from Panda Circus, and this equity poster from Studying Education.

Posted in picture books, Preschool Reads, Toddler Reads

Abracadabra, katakurico! What’s in the Hat?

Posted on by Rosemary Kiladitis

Hat Tricks, by Satoshi Kitamura, (March 2020, Peachtree Publishing), $16.99, ISBN: 9781682631508

Ages 2-6

Meet Hattie, the magician! She’s going to perform a wonderful magic show, and you get the front seat! With every spread, readers guess what’s in Hattie’s magic hat! Mattie pops out first, and with each spread and the magic words, abracadara, katakurico… a surprise awaits! But we get hints peeking out from the hat, so readers can take a guess at who’s next to pop out of the hat. The shenanigans get progressively sillier, heading toward a grand finale that everyone will love.

I LOVE this book. It’s meant to be read out loud, and to a group! Satoshi Kitamura’s comic book-type artwork is colorful, with bold outlines and expressive faces. This book would work very well with some flannels, or small stuffed animals, too: just pull ’em out of a hat and watch the kids cheer. The movement in the book takes up the whole spread, with hilarious energy and action that will make kids squeal and giggle.

Originally published in the UK in 2019, I’m very happy to welcome Hat Tricks to our shores and hope Satoshi Kitamura gives us some more interactive books to read with toddlers and preschoolers.

Hat Tricks has a starred review from Kirkus. There is a free, downloadable activity sheet available at the publisher’s website.

Posted in Fantasy, Fiction, Graphic Novels, Intermediate, Middle Grade, Teen, Tween Reads

Graphic Novels coming your way in July

Posted on by Rosemary Kiladitis

Yeah, you’ve got the summer reading lists (which, thank you teachers, have been getting better!), but you have to make time for pleasure reading, too! Check out some of the cool graphic novels coming out in July – perfect for sitting in the shade (or the sun, just wear your SPF) and enjoying the day.

Cottons: The Secret of the Wind, by Jim Pascoe/Illustrated by Heidi Arnhold, (July 2018, First Second), $19.99, ISBN: 9781250157447

Recommended for readers 10-14

Watership Down was one of those novels that changed my life when I was a kid. I first read it at about 9, after seeing the animated movie a year before, and it just blew my mind with its beautiful, yet brutal, story. I’ve returned to the book and movie several times throughout the years, and it remains one of my favorite books. Reading this first story in Jim Pascoe and Heidi Arnhold’s new graphic novel series, Cottons: The Secret of the Wind, reminds me of Watership Down, taking place in a more magical world.

We meet Bridgebelle, a rabbit working in the carrot factory by day, caring for her sick aunt by night. She’s always on the watch for the cruel foxes who prey on the rabbits

To her neighbors in the Vale of Industry, Bridgebelle is an ordinary rabbit. All day long, she toils at the carrot factory. After a hard day, she returns home to care for her ailing auntie. Bridgebelle also has a secret talent: she uses cha, the fuel that powers the rabbits’ world, to create magical artwork called thokchas. Bridgebelle must keep her magic secret, lest other rabbits in power try to use her and her power to create weapons; she also has to beware of the cruel foxes who hunt her kind.

There is a lot of storytelling here that makes the story hard to follow at times, but stick with it: it’s worth the journey. Heidi Arnhold’s beautiful artwork blends realistic animal art with fantasy and magic. Jim Pascoe sets a firm foundation to his universe here, and introduces several plots that will power readers through this new series. There is some violence – the foxes aren’t known for their mercy – so I’d recommend this one for middle grade and up. This is a nice companion to the Longburrow novels by Kieran Larwood and David Wyatt (the second book is due out in August!), for fans of animal fantasy, particularly starring rabbits.

Pop!, by Jason Carter Eaton/Illustrated by Matt Rockefeller, (July 2018, First Second), $17.99, ISBN: 9781626725034

Recommended for readers 4-8

A young boy sits, relaxed, blowing bubbles on a sunny day. His favorite part about blowing bubbles is popping them – naturally! – but one bubble has other plans! The bubble takes Dewey – yes, that’s his name – on a quest that will take him to new (literal) heights via trampoline, jungle gym, even a moon shuttle. Because, like the cover says, “Every last bubble must… POP!”

This is perfect fun for a summer read. If you’re outside, break out the bubbles and let the kiddos pop them! If you’re inside, maybe just hand some out (I worry about slippery floors, but if it’s not an issue for you, go for it). The semi-realistic art gives way to shiny flights of fancy; the bubble’s sheen seems to shine right off the page. The text is simple, easy to read, and great for newly confident readers. Kids and grownups alike will enjoy the simple joy of a little boy and his quest to pop the bubble.

Geeky F@b 5: It’s Not Rocket Science! (Geeky F@b 5 #1), by Lucy & Liz Lareau/Illustrated by Ryan Jampole, (July 2018, Papercutz), $12.99, ISBN: 978-1545801222

Recommended for readers 7-11

Papercutz has another fun, original graphic novel for intermediate readers; this time, they’re going STEM with the Geeky F@b 5: 5 girls who love science and are using their skills to make Amelia Earhart Elementary School better. Lucy, a fourth grader, and her older sister, Marina, a sixth grader, have just moved to the area and are ready to start school. Lucy, who loves the environment and animals, gels with her classmates right away: AJ, who wants to be an engineer like her dad; Sofia, a glitter girl who loves coding and making apps; and Zara, forever on her headphones, and a math whiz. Lucy gets hurt in the school’s outdated playground that first day, and the principal and nurse shut the playground down: but the girls have plans! Together with their teacher, they come up with a great idea: put together a series of fundraisers to get the money to rebuild the playground! Every one of the girls has a job to do; now, if they could just get the bullying older kids on their side, things would be perfect.

Geeky F@b is the first in a new STEM-focused graphic novel series form Papercutz; Volume 2 is due in December. The book is easy and fun to read, with a reasonable plot and goal that can empower readers to be forces for positive change in their own communities. The characters are diverse and relatable; I enjoyed spending some time with them and am pretty sure they’ll be popular reading at my library. This would pair nicely with Bob Pflugfelder and Steve Hockensmith‘s Nick and Tesla series (novels, not graphic) from Quirk, the Girls Who Code chapter book series, and the Howtoons graphic novels. Fun for summer!

Posted in picture books, Preschool Reads

When the World is Full of Friends, it’s a pretty great place

Posted on by Rosemary Kiladitis

When the World is Full of Friends, by Gillian Shields/Illustrated by Anna Currey, (Feb. 2018, Bloomsbury USA), $16.99, ISBN: 9781681196268

Recommended for readers 3-6

The rabbit family from When the World Was Waiting for You and When the World is Ready for Bed returns in this sweet book about play and discovering new friends. Siblings Albert, Tom, Flossie, and Pipkin love to play, and wish they had more friends to play with. They see a squirrel family across the stream, and put their heads together to figure out how to cross the stream to play together, turning the experience into a fun game in itself. The takeaway? “Playing with friends was wonderful!”

This is a great bedtime, quiet time, or circle time story. It’s got a calm pace, with soft watercolor and ink art. The messages of friendship and working together to play together reinforce positive lessons, and the opening and closing rhyming verses beautifully bookend the story narrative. Add this one to your storytime collections.

Posted in Preschool Reads

Hedgehog and Rabbit: Friends who have each other’s backs

Posted on by Rosemary Kiladitis

Hedgehog and Rabbit: The Scary Wind, by Pablo Albo/Illustrated by Gómez, (Nov. 2017, nubeOCHO), $14.95, ISBN: 978-84-945971-7-6
Recommended for readers 3-7

Two friends, Hedgehog and Rabbit, are in the garden looking for snails and eating cabbage, when a gust of wind stirs up a pile of leaves and scares them both! Each friend runs off in a different direction, but realizes they’ve left the other behind. Determined to be brave, Hedgehog and Rabbit each disguise themselves to scare the windy monster – but will they end up scaring each other instead?

 

Hedgehog and Rabbit: The Stubborn Cloud, by Pablo Albo/Illustrated by Gómez, (Nov. 2017, nubeOCHO), $14.95, ISBN: 978-84-945971-9-0
Recommended for readers 3-7

Hedgehog and Rabbit, are in the garden on a sunny day, looking for snails and eating cabbage, when a cloud rolls in and covers the sun! Try as they might, neither Rabbit nor Hedgehog can get the cloud to move out of the way. Looks like they’ll have to enlist some help from their fellow animal friends.

 

The Hedgehog and Rabbit stories are sweet, fun books about friendship. Like an earlier readers’ Frog and Toad, the two friends spend time together, watch out for one another, and face some amusing weather-related misunderstandings together. The stories revolve around Rabbit and Hedgehog not being in on the joke – but the readers are, allowing for some fun dialogue with your audience as the stories progress. These stories can be a fun enhancement for early lessons on weather. Gomez’s illustrations are bright and eye-catching, and the characters have expressive faces, which makes these books a fun storytime choice.

Hedgehog and Rabbit are also available in Spanish (Erizo y Conejo).

Posted in Animal Fiction, Fantasy, Fiction, Middle Grade, Tween Reads

Podkin One-Ear is perfect for fantasy fans!

Posted on by Rosemary Kiladitis

Podkin One-Ear (Longburrow #1), by Kieran Larwood/Illustrated by David Wyatt, (Sept. 2017, Clarion Books), $16.99, ISBN: 9781328695826

Recommended for readers 10-12

An old bard weaves a tale of the legendary warrior, Podkin One-Ear, for an audience gathered for the winter holiday, Bramblemas. In rabbit society, Podkin was the pampered son of a chieftain, lazy and shiftless, while his older sister, Paz, trains hard, knowing she won’t be chieftain because she’s female. When a savage warrior tribe of rabbits – red-eyed, iron-clad, iron-infused – called the Gorm attack Podkin’s burrow, Podkin, Paz, and their baby brother, Pook, run for their lives, the Gorm always one step behind them. Podkin has a magical sword that the Gorm want, and they’ll stop at nothing to get it.

Told in the third person in the bard’s voice, with occasional interludes to provide dialogue between the bard and some curious young rabbits, Podkin One-Ear makes the reader feel like he or she is sitting in a dining hall, listening to an epic tale unfold. David Wyatt’s black and white illustrations add to the epic feel of the story, and inject emotion into the tale; the action scenes and the emotion in his character’s faces evoke strong emotion. It’s a wonderful story about the rise of a hero, and I can’t wait to read more. There are big battles, arms and armor, magic weapons and witches – something for every fantasy fan!

Give this one to your Redwall fans, for sure. If you’ve got Mouse Guard graphic novels (and if you don’t, and have fantasy fans, you really need to), get those ready for readalikes. Lisa Fiedler’s Mouseheart series, plus Erin Hunter’s Warriors (and Seekers, and Survivors) are also great read-alikes, and if you’ve got readers that devour those, this is a good book to introduce them to.

Posted in Uncategorized

A cranky flea sets off a chain of events in Leap!

Posted on by Rosemary Kiladitis

Leap!, by JonArno Lawson/Illustrated by Josée Bisaillon, (Sept. 2017, Kids Can Press), $18.99, ISBN: 9781771386784

Recommended for readers 3-6

This fun circular, rhyming story starts with a flea, who leaps into a grasshopper’s path; the startled grasshopper leaps onto a bunny. The action continues, involving a dog, bullfrog, horse, and finally, back to the dog and the flea. It’s a fun story that would make for a good storytime read; get the kids up and jumping if you have more active storytimes, or bounce for lapsits. The cadence of the rhyme is fun and energetic, but I expected to see more spreads with the full animal leaping; there were a few where the right-side page showed the back end of a leap and it felt a little cut off, choppy, for me.

I’d add this to a storytime with Kalan ‘s Jump, Frog, Jump! and add some flannels for audience interaction.

Posted in Animal Fiction, Early Reader, Fiction, Preschool Reads

Catch Ralfy Rabbit, the Book Burglar!

Posted on by Rosemary Kiladitis

ralfyWanted! Ralfy Rabbit, Book Burglar, by Emily MacKenzie, (May 2016, Bloomsbury), $16.99, ISBN: 978-1681192208

Recommended for ages 4-7

Ralfy Rabbit LOVES books: he dreams about them; he makes lists of them; he wants to be surrounded by books ALL THE TIME. He loved books so much that he started sneaking into people’s bedrooms and reading their books while they were sleeping, but even that wasn’t good enough; he upgraded to taking the books home! One little boy named Arthur noticed that his books were starting to go missing, and to add insult to injury, soggy lettuce and half-eaten carrots were left behind. He makes a plan to catch the book burglar, but can Ralfy be rehabilitated?

A fun story with a good subplot about borrowing (and a great shout-out to libraries!), Wanted! Ralfy Rabbit, Book Burglar is a great storytime book and a great independent read. Kids can appreciate Ralfy’s single-minded love for books and understand Arthur’s dual frustration at having his books go missing and have no one believe him. Arthur’s confrontation and solution makes for good conflict resolution and problem-solving that works for everyone.

Emily MacKenzie’s artwork is adorable. Ralfy is wide-eyed and innocent, even when he’s up to no good; when he’s caught red-handed, his eyes fill up with tears and readers can’t help but feel bad for the poor book bandit. Arthur is drawn with a kindness that will invite readers to put themselves in his place right away. The pictures are sketched with defined outlines, and the font changes for emphasis: bolds, enlarged fonts, angled text to keep readers’ attention.

I’ve paired this with Helen Docherty’s Snatchabook and Ian Schoenherr’s Read It, Don’t Eat It! for library visit read-alouds; the kids love Ralfy and Arthur, but know that Ralfy’s “not being nice” when he takes books. One Kindergartner even called out, “He should just go to the library!” (Love that kid!) You can have a great discussion about borrowing versus taking things with kids as young as preschool; for younger audiences, use Ralfy’s adventure as a good starting point for talking about sharing and forgiveness.

Originally published in 2015 in the UK, Ralfy’s just arrived on US shores. Give him a welcome space on your shelves! There’s an activity kit available from Bloomsbury UK, and you can see more of Emily MacKenzie’s art and books at her author site.

Posted in Animal Fiction, Preschool Reads, Toddler Reads

Roar! A Tale of Friendship and Sleepless Adventure

Posted on by Rosemary Kiladitis

roarRoar! by Julie Bayless (Oct. 2015, Running Press), $16.95, ISBN: 9780762457502

Recommended for ages 2-5

A little lion cub can’t get to sleep. When he tries to wake up his family to play, their snores send him roaming the savannah in search of fun. He meets a group of hippos and a group of giraffes, but his friendly “ROAR” scares them off, but he and a bunny hit it off perfectly, and spend the rest of the night yelling “ROAR!” and “MORE!” together!

Roar! is a fun tale of friendship and adventuring. Kids (and sleepy parents) will recognize themselves in the little lion cub, trying to no avail to wake up the sleepy grownups to have some fun. The little guy’s no predator, but his friendly exclamation scares off much bigger animals; when he meets a similarly spunky bunny, the fun begins.

The book mixes graphic novel-style panels with full-page spreads and shifts in perspective, making this a fun read that will keep little ones engaged. It’s interactive – I’ve read this to toddlers and preschoolers, and we’ve hollered “ROAR!” and “MORE!” to our hearts’ content as we read through the book. I had one group of toddlers demand a second reading, and the roars were wonderful!

The digital art has a beautiful sharpness to it. The backgrounds are largely dark violet-blue, with the animals crisply defined against them. There are few words to the story: mostly “Roar” and “More”, with a few snores, burps and sniffs thrown in for good measure, so there is a lot of room for interaction – kids can describe the land, name the animals the cub encounters, and veer off into their own narration.

Roar is a great storytime book, bedtime book, anytime book. It’s been kid-tested, mother and librarian approved – don’t miss it!

Posted in Preschool Reads

Book Review: Moonlight, by Helen V. Griffith/Illus. by Laura Dronzek (Greenwillow Books, 2012)

Posted on by Rosemary Kiladitis

moonlightRecommended for ages 2-6

Told in rhyme, Moonlight tells the story of a rabbit that is so sleepy, he cannot wait for the moon to come out from behind the clouds, and heads to his burrow to sleep. When the moonlight emerges from behind the clouds, it coats everything it touches in a “butter trace”. It even reaches into Rabbit’s burrow and into his dreams, waking him up.

The illustrations, done in deeply saturated acrylics, set a drowsy, sleepy tone as readers see the moon lazily “butter” everything in its path with its light. The stars and comets look almost like Van Gogh’s Starry Night; the animals bathed in its light all sleep peacefully, and the landscapes  – mountains, trees, and  streams  – all seem soft, relaxed. The brief text itself seems quiet and relaxed, showing up unobtrusively on each spread and without punctuation to halt the eye or the mind.

This would be a wonderful addition to a bedtime read-aloud. Audiences can attend in their pajamas with a favorite stuffed animal, and serving milk and cookies would add to the storytime atmosphere. There are many bedtime rhymes and songs that can fit in with this theme. Using a flannel board may add to young audiences’ appreciation of the story.