seals – Mom Read It

What’s That Noise? Could it be a rumbly tumbly?

Posted on January 9, 2021January 8, 2021 by Rosemary Kiladitis

What’s that Noise?, by Naomi Howarth, (March 2020, Candlewick Press), $16.99, ISBN: 9781536213522

Ages 3-7

Magnus the Arctic seal wakes up to a strange, rumbling sound one morning. He sets off to figure out what it could be and encounters a group of friends along the way: an Arctic hare and fox, a ringed seal and snow owl, and a polar bear all puzzle over what the sound could be, but Walrus knows. It’s Magnus’s hungry tummy! After a tasty shrimp dinner, the friends all pile up to go to sleep, but another rumbling sound keeps them up. What could it be? What’s that Noise? is an engaging story and introduction to Arctic animals for younger kids; they get a chance to participate in the story during a readaloud if you invite them to figure out/tell the other animals what the rumbling could be, and at the end, let them chime in! It’s also a great chance for you to play with voices and sound effects. If you have flannels or animal puppets, take them out! Soft watercolors bring gentle color to the Arctic landscape, and endpapers show an Arctic sunrise and offer informative notes on the animals in the story.

Room On Our Rock shows two sides to the story

Posted on September 21, 2019 by Rosemary Kiladitis

Room On Our Rock, by Kate & Jol Temple/Illustrated by Terri Rose Baynton, (July 2019, Kane Miller), $12.99, ISBN: 9781610679022

Ages 4-8

Two seals bask on a rock when a mother seal and her calf show up, in need of a new home. In a heart-rending turn of events, the mother and calf are berated, told there’s no room on the rock, despite there being a wealth of space. Told to go back their own rock, we see tumultuous, dangerous waters await the two… but is this the real story? The book invites readers to back to front for a different point of view, and a very different story emerges. The mother and calf flee their home, in search of a new place to live, where they are warmly welcomed by seals who wouldn’t dream of turning them away.

Room On Our Rock is a touching, clever look at empathy, compassion, and perspective, presenting two points of view to topical events: refugees and immigration. Fleeing catastrophe, a mother and child hope to find safe harbor elsewhere. Will they be welcomed and sheltered, or turned away? Where will this family find compassion?The story takes a human dilemma and uses animal migration to illustrate the two divided schools of thought. The sparse text brings readers into the issues at the heart of the refugee crisis, showing either – depending on which side of the story you’re reading – an astonishing lack of compassion or empathy, or a heart-stirring wealth of benevolence and welcome. The illustrations add to the well of emotion created by the text, giving life to the words by giving us churning waters and the expressive faces of a desperate mother and child. There is a motion to the artwork that creates an urgency in the reader: those seals have to get out of there!

I loved Room on Our Rock and plan to read this at my next storytime. My son loves the concept of the two-sided story, and has gone back to this book several times. This is a good book about an important topic that seems to be its own endangered species: empathy.

Originally published in Australia in 2018, Room on Our Rock has been shortlisted for the Australian Book Design Awards in the Picture Book category, and for the New Zealand Post Book Awards in the Best Picture Book category. You can find downloadable discussion questions and activities.

Early Reader, Non-Fiction

Follow a penguin chick’s daily adventures One Day on Our Blue Planet… in the Anarctic

Posted on February 1, 2016August 24, 2019 by Rosemary Kiladitis

One Day On Our Blue Planet… In the Antarctic, by Ella Bailey (April 2016, Nobrow), $16.95, ISBN: 9781909263673

Recommended for ages 3-7

Join an Adélie penguin chick as she gets breakfast from her mother and heads out into the giant world on her own! We see her jump into the water and swim, searching for food, encountering whales and seals, and making sure to avoid becoming someone else’s dinner! Along the way, readers learn about how penguins like our little Adélie friend will travel for years before returning to solid land, how penguin bodies develop to keep warm, what they eat, and meet other types of penguins and sea animals.

Adorable, child-friendly, cartoony illustrations introduce us to all sorts of sea life, including a warty squid porpoise, Antarctic krill, leopard seal, and humpback whale. This is a fun introduction to the Antarctic for young audiences, with an animal kids already love: Penguins! Books like this help turn kids on to nonfiction – pair it with some Salina Yoon for a great penguin storytime, or have a nature read-aloud by pairing with the first book in the series, One Day On Our Blue Planet… In the Savannah.

Ella Bailey is an illustrator and writer. You can see more of her illustrations at Ohh Deer, and you can see some more art from One Day On Our Blue Planet… In the Antarctic right here.