Colours

(Every time I do a colour based storytime, it always descends into chaos, but I'm always willing to try again).

What Makes a Rainbow? by Betty Ann Schwartz
A lovely little rainbow book, with coloured ribbons strung between the pages, this book is told from the point of view of a little bunny, who asks her colourful friends "What makes a rainbow?"

A Color of His Own by Leo Lionni
A confused chameleon tries to find a sense of identity amongst his changing colours, instead he finds a friend with whom he can change colour and still know who he is.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle.
It's a classic for a reason and I've recently noticed that the fruits that the caterpillar eats are in the same order that you would use when weaning children onto solid food. This could be a coincidence. But it's a fun little observation nonetheless.

The Big Orange Splot by Daniel Pinkwater
"My house is me and I am it. My house is where I like to be and it looks like all my dreams." An early Daniel Pinkwater book about letting the colours of your personality shine through. It's a little longer than I'd normally read at storytime, but it's got such great colourful illustrations, it would be a shame to not read it.

Fortunately by Remy Charlip
A very strange little "good news/bad news" style book where our hero borrows an airplane, gets chased by tigers and ends up at a party. When something good happens to him the illustrations are in colour, when something bad happens, they're in black and white. It's utterly absurd in a way that children really appreciate. This book gets a lot of laughs.

Halloween!

Ghosts in the House by Kazuno Kohara
This is a beautifully illustrated book. The pictures are all made from cut outs of orange, black and white paper and they look great. But this is also a great story, with just the no-nonsense approach to the spooky scary that I really appreciate. I mean if you had ghosts in your house you'd catch them and put them in the washing machine, right?

Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler
Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler do it again with a cumulative tale about a helpful witch who gets into trouble after giving too many stray animals a ride on her broom. There is also a swamp monster and a dragon. Very Halloween-y.

The Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle
This spider is not very scary, in fact she's much more industrious than your average Halloween arachnid. All the animals on the farm ask if she wants to come and play, but she's busy spinning her web, so that when night time comes all the animals can admire her handywork (picked out in florescent ink in the book).

Bats in the Library by Brian Lies
The bats find an open window into the library and an open window into their imaginations too. I am not massively convinced by this book. It's beautifully illustrated, but I often feel myself stumbling over the text, which is not a good sign. Nevertheless the atmospheric nature of the book is perfect for a Halloween read aloud.

Where the Wild Things Are by by Maurice Sendak
At the moment, it seems this book needs no introduction. But when it comes to not-too-scary monsters, the Wild Things will always win hands down. Remember when you read this one aloud to roar your terrible roar, roll your terrible eyes, gnash your terrible teeth and show your terrible claws.

We'll be singing In the Dark, Dark Street, Row Row Row Your Boat (If you see the Wild Things, don't forget to scream) and Incy Wincy Spider

Cats

Slinky Malinki by Lynley Dodd
A cat of dubious character spends his nights collecting interesting things from around the neighbourhood. It ends in disgrace. This book reads like a real action adventure story, lots of building tension and intrigue.

Grumpy Cat by Britta Teckentrup
I love this author/illustrator, she also gave us Smelly Bear and because I'm a bit of an art snob I love the fact that she studied at St Martin's in London. All this aside this is a lovely book about making friends and how sometimes lonely and grumpy look the same. I've got the large format hardback for storytime and I've been practicing my plaintive mewing.

The Tiger Who Came to Tea by Judith Kerr
A strange English 1960s classic in which a tiger pops round for a snack and eats everything in the house. The little girl in the story loves the tiger, although he seems somewhat aloof throughout. I've often wondered if it's a metaphor for class conflict. In any case it's very exciting to see a tiger eating all the food and drinking all Daddy's beer.

Hondo and Fabian by Peter McCarty
Hondo is a dog and Fabian is a cat, they live together in the same house, but they have very different lives. This is a beautifully illustrated book, the pictures seem so soft and calm, yes even the one where the little girl is playing with Fabian against his will.

Sugar Would Not Eat It by Emily Jenkins and Giselle Potter
One of the dafter books I've read, this is a story about a little boy who finds a kitten and attempts to make it eat chocolate cake. There are a number of grown ups who weigh in with some of the arguments used against children who are fussy eaters, they all sound very stupid in this context. You'll be pleased to hear that the kitten gets milk and chicken in the end.

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.

Welcome to the Storytime Blog

It comes as no surprise to any parent when Educational Psychologists tell us we should read to our children for at least 20 minutes every day. Children love books and even before they can read they are learning so much from us when we read to them.

In this blog I hope to use my storytelling experience to suggest great books which you can read to your own children. I am not sentimental and I'm often highly opinionated about the books I choose to read, these are not exactly the average back cover blurbs. I've also grouped the books into themes, with songs and usually a poem. This can help you to explore a particular topic, or just when your toddler wants more books about trucks.

I have been reading to a group of under 5s at the local bookstore (Cover to Cover, San Francisco) for over a year, I have a two year old son and we read a lot.