Author: Aaron Becker
Sometimes it is hard to read a book with no words. But this one is a picturesque, imaginative and adventurous journey powered by a red marker. My five year old has narrated the story to her dolls and is marvelous book to help children unlock their imagination. This is one of the books that makes you feel how does an author come up with such themes. A brilliant read
Author: Ed Young
Seven Blind Mice are trying to identify a strange object in their path. Each one goes on each day of the week to figure out what the object is. My daughter guessed the object right on the first page but it was still a lot of fun to read through the book as the illustrations are colorful and there is even a moral to the story. The book is easy to read and there are several words that a kindergartener can sound out and read. It is a thoroughly enjoyable book even for smaller children
Author: Matt De La Pena
Illustrator: Christian Robinson
Any time one can travel on a city bus with their grandmom on a leisure trip, one should definitely do it. Grandmoms are wonderful people in building community. This book is no exception. My daughter is a first generation America living in the American suburbia , so both buses and grandmas are novelty. She was happy to read about the bus driver who could do magic, a guitar playing passenger and of course had many questions about the last stop on market street.
Author: Kevin Henkes
A pig, a bear, a bunny, an owl and a dog are waiting by the window side. They are all waiting for something. While they wait, they experience the moon, rain, thunder, winds and their days goes on. They have newer friends who join them from time to time. Some stay with them and some do not. This book is pretty much a metaphor for life. My daughter has been at a school from a very young age and I did not use the book as a teaching moment but I can see how the book could serve as one. When five more friends joined the main five, my daughter taught it was the perfect time to start counting them.
Author: Doug Salati
“A picture can convey a 1000 words”. Doug Salati’s hot dog is a perfect example for that famous idiom. He captures the dog’s frustration, desperation, elation and every other emotion with his wonderful pictures. My daughter loves the beach and carries a stuffed animal which is a sea lion. Both the beach and the sea lion make an appearance in the book making it a near perfect choice. This book demands a lot of detail in its pictures to move the story along and Salati absolutely nails it.
Author: Juana Martinez- Neal
A girl with a really long name wants to know the reason behind her long name. Her dad goes about explaining the story behind each person whose name is a part of her name. What follows is a wonderful passing down of family heritage and how we all really are standing on the shoulders of giants. As a child born in America to immigrant parents I often feel my kids lack the grounding in their own heritage and culture (mea culpa), this book provided me with an opportunity to talk about my daughter’s grand parents, great grand parents. There is even some spanish thrown in alongside some of the images and my daughter is naturally curious about languages, so we did read a few words of spanish as well
Author: Lindsay Mattick
Illustrator: Sophie Blackall
This is one of the coolest origin stories. The story is about the man who found Winnie in Winnie the Pooh and also the man who created Winnie, the character. As I was reading the book, my daughter wanted to whether it is really a true story. She also wanted to know what is war. We had a little bit of conversation about war. Sophie Blackall is a tremendous illustrator and she never fails to deliver.
Author: Mac Barnett
Illustrator: Jon Klassen
This book is one of my daughter’s favorite books. There are many times she has gone back and asked Sam and Dave to dig their hole in the right direction. Jon Klassen is a hero. He transforms a simple book with this wonderful and uncomplicated illustrations. I couldnt help but notice the amount of white space in each of the pages letting each page breathe. I will add this book to my collection at home. Also, advice to my five year odl to the friends is to listen to their dog.
Author: Julie Leung
Illustrator: Hanna Cha
A mom reads a richly illustrated bed time story to her toddler about going on an expedition to figure out the truth about dragons. The pictures make you feel as if you are right in the adventure with him. The truth sayers are two old women living in very different landscapes and showing him two different dragons. Do I reveal the truh about who the truth sayers are? I guess I will leave it to the book.
Author: Bao Phi
Illustrator: Thi Bui
A Great book with beautiful illustrations. A young Vietnamese boy accompanies his father one early morning on a fishing trip. This fishing trip is not for fun but to put dinner on the table for that night. Dad shares his memories about fishing at a different pond in Vietnam. While it is hard for a five year old to grasp the themes of war and displacement, it was quite easy for her to relate to a kid spending time with her father and the family gathering around the living table.
Author: Vera Brosgol
Hands down, this book has the best title. I am sure most parents with kids will agree. Jokes apart, this is heart warming tale about a grandma who wants to get finish with her annual pet project but is disrupted by her grandkids of all ages. She leaves the house to finish this project but like all grandmas, she makes her bed, tidies the floor, makes tea and then bolts with her belongings. It is quite unfortunate that as she leaves her house she encounters bears who don’t understand English, goats who mistake her wares for snacks and aliens without ears. But like all Grandmas, she stops at nothing to finish the job that she has undertaken. A happy ending ensues.
Wonderful book. This might even teach the kid to build her boundaries and practice some self love.
Author: Shawn Harris
This book is a visual treat. The first page opens in the city in a color depicting the lack of open spaces in the city – black. The mood improves in the second page as if we drive out to the faraway open spaces. The book bursts with color from there on. The best part is that the dash of colors seems like something a kid would color given a blank page. Its simple, yet delicate. It conveys a complex theme which requires the child to think hard so it did not go down well at bedtime but I have read this to my daughter at other times and she loved it.
Author & Illustrator: Oge Mora
I can smell Omu’s Red stew – Out the window, Out the door , down the hall, toward the street, around the block, through the pages and just like her many neighbors, even I feel like knocking on her door. This book is celebration of food, community and sharing. It reminded me of growing up in India and my great grandmother cooking/sharing her stuff with the rest of the community. Food is a great unifier and this book is a refreshing read at a time in the world where more and more people are feeling lonely. It is a straightforward message that needed to be said and it is depicted deliciously.
Author & Illustrator: Corey R Tabor
If there is a Hall of Fame for kids books, this book should belong in it. Mel is a Kingfisher who is trying to get out of his nest and fly for the first time. She is going to do it in the absence of his mom. She steps right to the edge of her branch and has an epic fall. The entire ecosystem living in that tree comes to her rescue but none of them can save her from falling straight down into the pond. What happens next forms the plot? The emotions of all the fauna in the tree are vividly captured as Mel is doing her thing. This is a story of despair and triumph so breathtakingly brought to print. This book and its author deserves all the kudos it has got.
Ps: My daughter loved the ladybug’s reaction. I felt the helplessness and joy felt by the ants.
Author and Illustrator: “The OG” Maurice Sendak
This is a tribute to the wild imagination inside every child, who wants to command a army of wild things and rule them. There is a Max in all of us. The visuals draw you in bringing out child’s impishness, courage, valor , hunger, anger, enjoyment and vulnerability. The wild things are scary and adorable. My appreciation for Sendak only grew when I saw him in an interview with Stephen Colbert (I am colbert fan boy) and Sendak absolutely owned Stephen in the interview
This is another book that was written in the early 1940s . I fear I might have to drop the word – “Classic”. (Read Mark Tawin’s quote on Classics and you will know the reason for my apprehension). A Mallard and his wife take you on a tour of Boston as they attempt to start a family. The family with fantastic duck names experience wonderful human kindness and thrive in the public parks of Boston. An uplifting book with a great room for conversation with the kids.
When I read books to my toddler, I am most satisfied when it brings out a smile in them. She couldn’t stop giggling halfway through No David when the kid steps out to the street and his mom is yelling “No, David”. This is a beautifully illustrated book and fully deserves the Caldecott Honor. The happy ending is a predictable touch but it fully got the “Aw, Aw” from the kids.
The fun fact about this book is it is written in Insect Language with English alphabets. So it is really hilarious to decipher what the insects are talking and you can let your imagination run wild. The astounding visuals on each page help your broaden that creativity. We have discussed butterfly life cycles, seasons, plant growth, life forms dependent on plants while reading this book. One more book which we did not return after the normal lending period and kept renewing it. “Icky, Icky, Icky”
I read nightly to my five year old and I am reading her Caldecott medal winning books or Caldecott Honor books.
We recently read the Knight Owl by Christopher Denise. The illustrations are perfect – an owl who wants to be a Knight who is perservering, clever and strong. The reveal in the section where he smartly escapes and befriends the dragon is so humorous. We borrow 10-12 books from the library every week and she held on to this one for a while . We read it multiple times over multiple weeks. We definitely recommend it.
Book Link: https://bookshop.org/p/books/knight-owl-christopher-denise/16321815?ean=9780316310628