Layla's Happiness -- Perfect Picture Book Friday

Title: Layla's Happiness

Author: Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie

Illustrator: Ashleigh Corrin

Publisher: Enchanted Lion, 2019

Themes: Happiness

Opening:

My name is Layla. I am seven years old. 

Layla means "night beauty," and I love the night.

Why I love this book and think you will too:

When I wish my friends happy birthday, I like to wish for them to have joy, laughter, peace, and special moments that become memories to treasure for a lifetime. I have learned that in life, when we look for happiness we are more likely to notice it and when we look for sadness or anger, we will spot that more quickly. Moments are fleeting, but when we move slowly enough to take note and put those memories into a journal or drawing, they stick with us. 

Layla's Happiness is her journal of happiness. Mariahadessa and Ashleigh worked together to share Lay;a's moments of happiness. Each line and illustration is a touchstone for the reader to see that happiness is not some distant thing you must go looking for, it is right there in the purple plum, the poetry, the garden, etc. etc. 

They share their happiness, but also ask, What makes you happy? 

Ashleigh received the Ezra Jack Keats Award for outstanding new illustrator this year.  Mariahadessa received the Writer Honor award. Learn more about it here. You can even watch the award ceremony. 

Ashleigh's illustrations have a beautiful simplicity and show her love for color and graphic shapes. 

I have a book called How to be a Wildflower: a field guide by Katie Daisy. It is like a nature journal and a call to action. The pages Each two page spread is like it's own little universe. As I read Layla's Happiness, I felt like it was designed in that same way. Each two page spread is it's own little world. The element that ties it all together is Layla and her bright yellow dress.

Resources and Activities:

• Make a Happiness journal, scraps of paper and a pencil or pen is all it takes. You can always add paint or crayons, glue in cool stuff. 
• Move slowly through the world. Drink in all the beauty.

• Learn more about Mariahadessa.
• Learn more about Ashleigh
• Learn more about the Ezra Jack Keats Awards.

Tiny Creatures -- Perfect Picture Book Friday

Earth Day Every Day!

Title: Tiny Creatures: The World of Microbes
Author: Nicola Davies
Illustrator: Emily Sutton
Publisher: Candlewick Press, 2014 (US)

Themes: Science, Second person, STEAM, Microbes

Opening Lines: You know about big animals, and you know about small animals . . .but do you know that there are creatures so tiny that millions could fit on this ant's antenna?

Why I believe you will LOVE this Book:

As we live through this Pandemic with Covid-19, microbes are taking a front seat in our fear and desire to understand. This picture book provides an understanding of microbes, the good, the bad, the pretty, and the ugly.

This book helps readers grasp the benefits and dangers of microbes. It helps us grasp that they come in many shapes and sizes. There are many more healthy microbes than the bad ones.

Emily Sutton's watercolor illustrations are beautiful and help to make a kind of scary topic less scary.

This is one of those books that you may not pick up on any old average day, but once you do pick it up, I think you will go back to it even when we have any old average days again.

Resources and Activities:

Here is a video of the book being read aloud.

An inspiring video interview with Nicola Davies.

Nicola's Website

Emily Sutton's Website

Learn more about Microbiology

This video is current and puts the health of our earth into relationship with the health of humankind.

Support your Local Indie Bookstore when you purchase a book.

Check out Susanna Hill's Perfect Picture Book Friday Blog post each week to learn about more cool books to read with your kids and add to your collection.

We Are Water Protectors -- Perfect Picture Book Friday

It is Earth Month and April 22nd is Earth Day, the 50th anniversary. Every Day is Earth Day. This is our planet and we need to care for it each and every day. We Are Water Protectors is brand new and it is a poem and prayer for our earth and the water that gives us life.

Title: We Are Water Protectors
Author: Carole Lindstrom
Illustrator: Michaela Goade
Publisher: Roaring Book Press, 2020

For Ages: 4 and Up

Themes: Earth, Water, Native Peoples, Protests

Opening lines: 
Water is the first medicine, Nokomis told me.
We come from water.
It nourished us inside our mother's body.
As it nourishes us here on Mother Earth.
Water is sacred.

Why I LOVE this book and think you will too:

Somehow throughout my life, I have been introduced to many Native People's and learned a little bit about their cultures. Their stories have given me a love of the earth and an appreciation of the people and their connection to the world.

This book is a beautiful connection to the stories, the people, and our need to connect with mother earth. It is a call to arms to protect our planet and the water that gives us life.

It is a prayer for the earth.

Michaela's illustrations are like a dream. They show the beauty and the horror in contrast to each other as poetically as the words written by Carole.

This book makes me want:  To read it over and over again. To linger on each image. To glide my fingers across the colors and the water. To hold it close to my heart to remind me of what is truly important in life. To push me to stand up and fight for what is right.

I hope it does the same for you and your children.

Listen to Carole Lindstrom Read the book

Activities and Resources:

Check out Carole's website.

https://www.michaelagoade.com/about

Go outside, dig in the dirt, play with water. Plants seeds, a tree, and flowers.

Play with watercolor paints.

Learn more about the complaints and concerns regarding the Dakota Access Pipeline

More on the Pipeline

Learn about the Native American cultures where you live.

Take Action.
Pick up garbage left behind.
Attend a rally.
Make signs.
Write to your government officials.
Change one little thing like giving up straws and balloons.

OK, I am off to listen to Matthew Winners Podcast interview with Carole and Michaela. You can too.

Looking for more great books to read with your kids. Be sure to check out Susanna Hill's Perfect Picture Book Friday Blog Post.

Chicks Rule -- Perfect Picture Book Friday

Title: Chicks Rule!
Author: Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen
Illustrator: Renée Kurilla
Publisher: Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2019

For Ages 3 and Up

Themes: Working together, empowerment, chicks rule

Opening pages: ZOOOOOM!! WHOOOOOSH! Rocket Club The coolest Club in the Galaxy. Meeting Today. No Chicks Allowed!!!

Chick gets mad.

Cool chicks and nerdy chicks
Quiet chicks and wordy chicks

Biker chicks and rocker chicks
Science chicks and soccer chicks . . .

All the chicks (They are young chicken chicks) are told no, they aren't welcome. While they come from different backgrounds, and have different dreams, they all have a common hurdle and together they work to conquer their dreams.

Why I think you will love this book:

This is a story about accomplishing your dreams in the face of adversity. It's about working together with what you have in common to support each other and make dreams come true.

If you have ever felt like you are Not Allowed, this book is for you.

The illustrations are adorable. Renée's work is bright and cheerful. the chicks come from diverse backgrounds. There's tons of fun stuff to look at on each page.

Along the way, you may begin to discover what kind of chick you are and begin your journey to the stars.

Resources and Activities:

Sudipta reads Chicks Rule.

Sudipta talks about her story and why she created it.

Activity pages.

The second book, Chicks Rock! about Rocker Chicks  getting up and singing in front of an audience comes out in 2021.

If you enjoyed this story, you can support the author and illustrator by buying your own copy of the book. You can also support independent bookstores through Bookshop.org. Make sure your library has the book in their collection too.

Susanna Hill had a Perfect Picture Book Blog where writers and teachers share a favorite book every Friday. Check it out to learn about more great picture books.

Counting Birds -- Perfect Picture Book Friday

Title: Counting Birds: The Idea that Helped Save Our Feathered Friends
Author: Heidi E.Y. Stemple
Illustrator: Clover Robin
Publisher: Quatro Publishing Group USA, 2018

Opening Lines: Frank Chapman loved birds. He worked at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City creating exhibits about birds.

Themes: Citizen Science, Biography, Ornithology, Birds, Nature, STEAM, Earth Day

Why I Love this Book and Think You Will Too:

I love birds. When I was young, we had a neighbor who put sunflower seeds on the banister of her deck that sat in the middle of the woods. When we would visit, she was always sure to let up put seed out. Then she would call "chick- a dee-dee- dee, Chick-a dee-dee, dee" From the trees we would hear the little black, white and grey birds call back. "dee-dee-dee" That was how I learned about my first bird. They are still one of my favorite birds.

This book may be the first step in helping you love birds too. If you already love birds, you will enjoy this book for the information and beauty.

The author, Heidi Stemple is the child in the much loved and beautiful book Owl Moon by Jane Yolen. She went out on the Christmas Bird Count owling with her father as a child. She continues the tradition with the Owl Moon Gang.

Counting Birds is part call to action, part biography, and part nature exploration.  It shows how taking a small step can lead to big things that protect and preserve our natural world.

The cut paper illustrations are beautiful and deserve special attention.

Right now you can watch and listen as Heidi reads the book.

Activities and Resources:

Be sure to check out all of Heidi's videos related to this book. She will show you how to call down the Owls.

http://heidieystemple.com/books.html

Learn more about Clover's Cut Paper artwork

Check out Clover's Website

Need a laugh? Did you know T-Rex has a connection with birds?
T-Rex visits the Birds at the Field Museum

Make a drawing of a bird. It's one of Heidi's suggested activities.
I made this one in Procreate on my iPad. It started with a random squiggle. I guess I had birds on my mind.

Crab Cake -- Perfect Picture Book Friday

Title: Crab Cake: Turning the Tide Together
Author/Illustrator: Andrea Tsurumi
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019

First lines: Under the sea, where sunlight touches sand, lies a place that's home to many incredible creatures. Clownfish hides in the stinging anemone (ah-neh-mo-nee). Manta Ray gets cleaned. . .  And Crab bakes cakes.

Why I love this book: 

One: It is beautiful. Andrea's illustrations are full of color, detail and emotion. You could sit and look at each page for hours.

Two: It's about the creatures in the ocean. I love the ocean.

This is true. To add to it, if you are snorkeling in shallow coral areas, you can actually hear the Parrotfish crunching on the coral. And, if you think about it, when you put you feet on the sandy bottom, you are standing on Parrotfish poop (the sand).

Three: The play on words. Crab Cakes, get it? Popular people food and in this story, Crab bakes cake.

Four: It's an important story about saving our ocean.

Five: Fear can freeze us in our tracks, but if one person or crab shakes things up just a little bit, great things can happen.

And Six: Cake!

It's delicious, beautiful, poignant, and important!

Activities and Resources:

Learn more about the ocean life shown in the book. Who knows, you may discover some fun and strange facts along the way. Check out books from your school or public library.

Visit an Aquarium:  In Chicago, the Shedd Aquarium offers free days to Illinois Residents and is a Museums for All partner. Check out the Aquarium closest to you and spend the day under the sea.

Take Action! Even if you don't live near an ocean, there are loads of things you can do to help protect your family, the planet, and future generations.

• When you go to the beach, a park, or forest, take a bag and pick up garbage you find.
• Be sure to recycle.
• Rethink what you use, can you do without it? Can you use it again? Can you . . . .
• As the story of the Starfish goes, you alone may not be able to do a whole lot, but by tossing that starfish back into the sea, you have made a difference to that one starfish.
• Learn about the EU's ban on single use plastics.
• Did you know that Maine is the first state in the US to ban Styrofoam? 
• Start a program in your neighborhood/school and see how you can make it grow. Maybe the program is to teach people about the ocean, or the life cycle of butterflies, or how to grow a garden, or collecting plastic bottle caps to have made into benches. The sky's the limit.
• Write letters to your government officials, let them know you want change and you are willing to help make it happen.

Learn about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch

https://lgbpodcast.libsyn.com/

Be sure to listen to Matthew C. Winner and Andrea Tsurumi talking about the book on The Children's Book Podcast Blog. This is one of my favorite podcasts so far. I enjoy them all, but the joy, compassion, humor, and enthusiasm that Andrea and Matthew have in this interview is contagious. You can subscribe to The Children's Book Podcast through just about any podcast app.

Remember, 71% of our earth is covered by water. You are made up of 60% water. Clean water is important. Not just the oceans, but our lakes, rivers, and streams too.

Be Like Crab and . . . Bake A Cake

Any cake. If you want to share it with me, I need it to be gluten free. 

I found this mix from Simple Mills at the grocery store, and it's really tasty. 

Be sure to check out Susanna Hill's Blog where you can look for reviews by book, title, and by themes. And you can check out her weekly #PPBF post along with links to many more wonderful posts here.

The Important Thing . . . Perfect Picture Book Friday

Title: The Important Thing About Margaret Wise Brown
Author:  Mac Barnett
Illustrated by: Sarah Jacoby
Publisher: Balzar and Bray, 2019

I was so fortunate to hear Mac Barnett read this book at the Anderson Bookstore Children's Literature Breakfast way back in February. I fell in love. This is an important book.

It is a little bit biography of Margaret Wise Brown. You will learn bits and pieces of her life as you read. It is a little bit biography of Anne Carroll Moore who doesn't even appear in the book until page 20. A little bit about censorship. A little bit about life and death. A little bit about being strange and being yourself. Yes, it is an important book that tells you important things about Margaret Wise Brown and important things about life and death.

The First page: "It did not seem important that anyone wrote these stories. They were true. And it still doesn't seem important! All this emphasis today on who writes what seems silly to me as far as children are concerned." -- Margaret Wise Brown.

The first lines of the story: (I say story because while this is a biography, it is also a story.)
"Margaret Wise Brown lived for 42 years. This book is 42 pages long. You can't fit somebody's life into 42 pages, so I am just going to tell you some important thing."

Man, he had me at Hello.

Most picture books are not paginated. But this one is. Mac refers to the page we are on several times in the book just as he tells us how many pages the book is. We learn about Margaret as a child, as an author, and as an adult. We get tidbits of her life surrounded by the world around her and how she interacts with it. He tells us her books are strange, she is strange, and yet, she is compelling and exciting. I love people who are all of those things.

And then there are the illustrations. Sarah Jacoby brings Margaret Wise Brown to life in vivid colors and movement. Throughout she slips in book covers of Margaret's books and uses the characters from her stories to show the action within the biography. Be sure to check out the cover under the paper cover. It is lovely. Look closely at the illustrations. It's more than just Margaret's books (I think I missed that until I took a close-up photo of the page) So many details!

Activities:

Play Seek and Find throughout the book. What book covers do you see? Have you read those books? Check them out and keep the reading going. What other details do you notice? Are illustrations used in tiny spots from larger illustrations in the book? Count the rabbits.

Pick a bouquet of flowers and set them on your table. Enjoy the fleeting moments of flowers.

Read books by Margaret Wise Brown

Teachers and Librarians: This would make a great read for Banned Book Week. Or maybe the week before Banned Book Week. A door to open up to conversations about Banned Books. "Because every good book is at least a little bit strange, and there are some people who do not like strange things in their worlds." I hope today, libraries are less restrictive in their selection policies. I believe for the most part that they are. But, I also believe that we can ALWAYS do better. Whether that is buying more Indie published books that maybe didn't get reviewed in the major journals, seeking out more diversity in books by own voices authors, offering controversial programming, speaking up for all people, and being the place that communities can rely of for opening our minds and allowing us to learn and release our biases.

Thesarahjacoby.com
@sjacobee
https://veryimportantmargaret.tumblr.com/

Be sure to check out Susanna Hill's Blog where you can look for reviews by book, title, and by themes. And you can check out her weekly #PPBF post along with links to many more wonderful posts here.

Perfect Picture Book Friday -- Pocket Full of Colors

Hello World, It's #PPBF time!

Title: Pocket Full of Colors: The magical world of Mary Blair, Disney artist extraordinaire
Authors: Amy Guglielmo and Jacqueline Tourville
Illustrated by: Brigette Barrager
Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2017

Ages: 6 and up

Themes: Biography, Artists, Women


First page: Under a wide blue sky, on a red dirt road,in a lemon-yellow house, there lived a girl named Mary. Other children collected marbles or dolls, but Mary collected colors of every shade and hue.

Why I love this book:

I am sorry to admit that until Vanessa Brantley Newton talked about the art and style of Mary Blair in my character design class, I didn't know who she was. But, it's never too late to learn.

Over the past couple of years, I have taken a much closer look at who the artists and illustrators are in picture books. I try to figure out their medium and style. Vanessa talks about the little feet that Mary Blair incorporated into her drawings of people. I realized, I needed to put a face to those little feet. I looked her up and came across this picture book biography.

It is a beautiful book which takes you through Mary's life and ties it all together with her love of color and her unique and daring style of art.

As you can see, Brigette Barrager used the bright swirls of color throughout Mary's life to show her never ending love of color.  In the last image above, you get a glimpse of the men she was working with at Disney. The are all in brown and white. While Walt Disney loved her colors and vibrant style, the other men's ideas and acceptance of Mary's style paled in comparison. Mary never gave up her dreams. She went off and created illustrations for many books with Little Golden Books.

When I was 10, our family went to Disney World. I fell in love with the "It's a Small World" exhibit/ride. Little did I know, that this was the work of Mary Blair. I wanted to go through that ride over and over again. Today, it would be kind of boring compared to the glitz and glamour of rides today, but back then, when the world felt so big, before everything was on the internet, when we hardly talked about all the cultures of the world, the It's a Small World, boat ride through tunnels and animated characters from around the world, inspired my love of people, color, and art. If Mary Blair were alive today, the ride would likely be bigger and brighter, and even more exotic, but it would have her same flair.

So I love this book because it tells me the story of a courageous artist who didn't give up, when others wanted her to be different. She persevered and created exciting art for her time inspiring artists to create and experiment with their own style and flair.

It is beautifully written and illustrated.

Activities:

Learn more about Amy Guglielmo
Learn more about Jacqueline Tourville
And Brigette Barrager
Learn more about Mary Blair

Create a Color Bingo game to collect colors when you travel.

Find your color. A friend posted this video of Sam Adams skin color comedy routine on Facebook, and it feels so appropriate here. It's good clean comedy. I am currently three colors: Indulgent Peach (sun tan/burn), Provincial peach (where the sun hasn't shined), and my freckles are Reindeer Herd according to Sherwin Williams color charts. What's your color/colors?

Make art!

Sing along: It's a Small World After All