How Do You Feel?

This week's storytime theme is How do you Feel? Or books about feelings and how to spot them in the facial expression, tone of voice and body language of others.

Funny Face - Nicola Smee.

This bright board book uses extremely clear images of facial expressions. Each two page spread has a narrative image on one side and a close up of the hero's facial expression on the other. So we can find out how you look when you're happy, sad, angry, frightened or when a family of bears steals your ball.

Dogfish - Gillian Shields

When did you work out that if your Mum says "we'll see" she really means "no"? The little boy in this story really, really, really wants a dog. But his Mum won't let him, not even when he uses his hypnotising eyes. Thankfully there's a talented goldfish on hand to sort out this emotional tangle.

We're Going on a Bear Hunt - Michael Rosen

This is a pretty strange book if you think about it too hard. I mean, taking a baby through a snowstorm in it's PJs seems wrong to me. But like most traditional stories it does have a good strong moral, in this case, don't go looking for danger. I love the Helen Oxenbury illustrations, especially the sad bear at the end.

How Do You Feel? - Mandy Stanley

All the animals in this book have very strong feelings, the illustrations are great and the idea is brilliantly simple. The cat eating out of the dog's bowl is pretty funny. I've seen this book on both sides of the Atlantic, in Britain the cat is feeling cheeky and in America, he's feeling bold.

Llama Llama Mad at Mama - Anna Dewdney

Our red pajama wearing llama friend is back and this time he's off to shop-o-rama. As with all toddlers, he starts off quite excited and gets steadily more bored and frustrated. It all ends with ice cream, but there has to be some negotiation first.

I'll be singing "If you're hapy and you know it", "In a dark, dark room" and one I wrote called "Wear your boogie pants". The poem will be "I'm in a Rotton Mood Today" by Jack Prelutsky.

Family

The Family Book - Todd Parr.

Everyone is different and so are our families. This is a very simple list book with illustrations in primary colours (the illustrator's style will be familiar to anyone who's seen the author's TV show "Todd's World"). But the most refreshing thing here is that there is no family set-up left unlisted. Single parent families, two Mums, two Dads, adoption and even communal style living are all part of the Family package. I love reading this to children and knowing that they accept it as fact.

Ben and Gran and the Whole Wide Wonderful World - Gillian Shields.

This one may be difficult to source in America, but try your local bookstore, they'll certainly try to find a supplier for you. Ben lives on one side of the world and Gran lives on the other side, although sending messages is fun, it's no substitute for seeing your favourite person. So Gran goes on an epic journey to get to Ben whilst Ben prepares for her arrival. This is a great book to read to a transportation loving toddler, as Gran uses any means necessary, including camel and high speed express train to get to Ben.

Going on a Bear Hunt - Michael Rosen.

Sometimes families go on adventures together and in this popular version of the traditional story it's the Dad who takes the lead. It's illustrated by Helen Oxenbury who apparently enjoyed the subject matter being people and not anthropomorphic animals. There is a real sense of family adventure here and we can all understand why the bear looks so sad and lonely on the last page.

Mama Do You Love Me? - Barbara M Joose.

Toddler's love to push their parents and test the limits of the love. This charming book with an Innuit theme, calmly explains that Mama's love knows no limits, even if you turn into the meanest polar bear there ever was.

Harry the Dirty Dog - Gene Zion.

Back in the 1950s families were made up of one Mom (who cooked), one Dad (who went to work), one little girl (who liked dolls) and one little boy (who liked trains), they usually had a dog. This is nonsense of course, families have never been this way, but the Harry series of books gives us some interesting historical perspectives, not least into the way we used to think about family. Harry runs away from home to avoid taking a bath, but really misses his family and after getting very dirty he returns home to find that no-one recognises him. There's only one thing he can do. And yes, there is a coal chute in this book, you could use it as an opening gambit in a conversation about renewable energy sources!

We will be singing, "This Train is Going to Grandma's", "Splash, Splash, Bubble Bubble, Quack Quack" (one of mine...lyrics and music to come soon), and "I'm a Little Airplane" and the poem will be Seeing All My Family by Claire Salama.