What Grows in Your Garden?

The Curious Garden by Peter Brown

A small boy singlehandedly turns a drab town into a beautiful colourful garden. This is a new book which has received rave reviews. The illustrations are crisp without being sharp and the words are simple and honest. It's an amazing book to describe the power of nature and how the choices we make can shape our environment.

The Happy Bee by Ian Beck

This very colourful book for the babies is very simply a close up look at some well known types of flowers, Daisy, Poppy, Rose and Lily. The bee flies from one to another in all kinds of weather and is happiest when there is a rainbow. Extremely simple and continually popular.

My Garden by Kevin Henkes

A little girl helps her mother in the garden and dreams about having her own garden where the carrots would be invisible and jellybeans would grow on big bushes. Another beautiful work by Kevin Henkes, packed with imagination and vibrant illustration.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

I'm sure it feels as though I read this book every week, but it is undeniably appealing. This week my excuse is that it's not just plants growing in the garden.

Over in the Meadow by Ezra Jack Keats

Everyone knows this traditional counting song and this book version by the author of Snowy Day has some great illustrations. The Mother Muskrat has a particularly brilliant facial expression.

We will be singing "Mr Sun", "I Can Sing a Rainbow" and "The Farmer Plants the Seeds"

On Wheels

The Adventures of Taxi Dog by Debra Barracca, Sal Barracca, and Mark Buehner.

From the people who brought you the Escape of Marvin the Ape this is a heartfelt story about a stray dog who finds a new home with a New York taxi driver. The illustrations are full of little jokes and so is the heavily rhythmic text. One small thing, I always have to skip the page that says "to the hospital quick, my wife is quite sick" the wife in question is a pregnant woman, she's not sick, she's having a baby! But apart from that it's a fun book.

Chugga Chugga Choo Choo by Kevin Lewis and Daniel Kirk.

This little train goes chugs through a bedroom littered with toys. It has great colourful illustrations, very crisp and clear, which helps us all to understand that this is an imaginary journey. It also ends in a sleepy bedtime (always useful in a potential bedtime story).

Melvin Might by Jon Scieszka, David Shannon, David Gordon, and Loren Long.

The authors of this book read like the who's who of contemporary American children's books. It's one of the Trucktown books, a new series of picture books designed specifically to engage boys in reading. Melvin the Concrete Mixer is a worrier, but he's forced to stop worrying and start acting when his friend's little sister gets stuck in a hole. Some parents have been uncomfortable with the boistrous nature of this series. The little sister wouldn't have been stuck in the hole if they hadn't been playing a reckless game of jumping a half finished bridge and perhaps a more conservative book would have sent Melvin to get some help, not to jump into the hole after her. But if you can get over that, the core message about helping your friends is a good one and it certainly engages my son.

Duck on a Bike by David Shannon.

I never miss an opportunity to read this book. I think I've mentioned it previously on this blog, but I'll happily do so again. A duck rides a bike whilst his farmyard friends look on. What the animals say and what they think is cleverly different. Plus the action packed illustrations add a fast pace to the thoughtfulness. I also love how this book jumps in feet first to the story, it starts "One day duck thought to himself 'I bet I could ride a bike'" and then he does

Rescue Vehicles by Gill Davies.

This is a foil pop up book, not much to read, but the pop ups are fun to look at.

I'll be singing "This Train is Going to the City", "The Wheels on the Bus" and "Tractor". I think I'll do the William Carlos Williams poem about the red wheelbarrow, that should keep them on their toes.

Loud!

Noisy City Night by Sara Anderson.
There are lots of good noises in this excellent board book, the weeeeee you of firetrucks the rumble of underground trains and the old man muttering. It's a delight to read aloud and always catches the toddler's attention. The book is also made of cityscape cut outs and has a number of jokes for the grown ups, take a look at the wording on the billboards, my favourite is "you never did like peas".

Noisy Nora by Rosemary Wells
Nora is a mouse who's little brother and sister are (in her opinion) getting way too much attention. She bangs around the house, but eventually it goes quiet, then they really notice her. Rosemary Wells is the author/illustrator of Max and Ruby, this is one of her earlier books for younger children, although her distinctive style is still apparent.

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. And a huge CRASH!

Little Blue Truck by Alice Schertle
A familiar tale of the little guy saving the day, set in a very noisy countryside. The illustrations (by Jill McElmurry) have a great American Naive feel to them and the rhyming text has a light touch.

Mama Don't Allow by Thacher Hurd
Miles gets a saxophone for his birthday but he makes such a noise with it that his parents send him out into the swamp. There he meets more musicians (also familiarly named) Al, Bert and Doc. They form a band, but the band need their wits about them when they play their first gig at the alligator ball, because those alligators are hungry!

We'll be singing Old Macdonald, Ants go Marching and Ole King Cole.

On the Farm

Cock-a-Doodle Quack Quack by Ivor Baddiel, Sophie Jubb, and Ailie Busby
A young rooster has trouble with waking up the farm, luckily there's a wise old owl in the barn, with a few words of advice. This is a simple book, with a nice underlying theme about how you should be yourself, it's what you're best at.

Serious Farm by Tim Egan
Farmer Fred is very serious "nothin' funny about corn" he deadpans. However his animals disagree and after various attempts to make farmer Fred laugh, they finally give up and run away. What happens next is a bit silly, but it all ends well. This is a great read-aloud book for funny voices. Especially Farmer Fred, who needs a serious drawl. I would also add that this is a good book for slightly older pre-schoolers as it deals with animals doing things they just don't do.

The Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle
The hero of this book is too busy to play with all the other animals on the farm, but he makes a beautiful web. Just what you'd expect from Carle, who also wrote The Very Hungry Caterpillar this book is simple with beautiful collage illustration.

Duck on a Bike by David Shannon
I love this book. I think it's one of the best children's picture books ever published. The text is structured without being repetitious, there's plenty of opportunity to make animal noises and it features a creature on wheels. But that's not all, the story actually deals with the distance between what the farm animals say, what they think and what they feel. A hugely intellectual concept, fundamental to successful social interaction and dealt with effortlessly in a great story. David Shannon is also an amazing illustrator who's chaotic paintings are seemingly always in motion.

Say Hello to the Animals by Ian Whybrow and Tim Warnes
A baby book about animal noises, once again it's a fun read aloud option because the text asks questions with obvious answers "Look who's hiding under those sticks? Say hello to the fluffy...Chicks". The children love to shout out the answers and then we can all make the noises at the end of the book.

I'll be singing Old MacDonald, Mary Had a Little Lamb and the Tractor Song and the poem will be the William Carlos Williams poem which begins "so much depends".

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.