Actual Size

Actual Size. Written and illustrated by Steve Jenkins. 2004. New York: Houghton Mifflin. 28 p. (0618375945).

Author/Illustrator Website: www.stevejenkinsbooks.com

Media: cut and torn paper collage
  
Awards and Honors: BCBB Blue Ribbon Nonfiction Book, Orbis Pictus Honor Book, International Reading Association 'Children's Choice 2005', CHILD Magazine 'Best Book of the Year', A Booklist Editor's Choice, A New York Public Library's '100 Titles for Reading and Sharing', Natural History 'Best Books for Young Readers' 2004, Chicago Public Library 'Best of the Best', Children's Liteature Choice List 2004

Audience: Preschoolers and Up

Annotation:
Jenkins displays the beauty and variation of the animal kingdom in actual size. 

Personal Reaction:
Steve Jenkins is known for his beautiful and detailed torn paper collages. While most illustrators working in this medium illustrate picture book stories, Jenkins employs his distinctive style to illustrate non-fiction books. 

Actual Size is an exploration of some of the biggest, heaviest and longest animals on earth- all shown true to size. Jenkin's meticulous attention to detail and rich textures create images that almost leap from the page. Some animals like the Goliath beetle (length: 6 inches, weight: 3.5 ounces) are shown in their entirety, while others like the giant squid (length: up to 59 feet) are only partially shown. (The giant squid's 12 inch eye takes up an entire two page spread!)

Each animal is accompanied by only a line or two of descriptive text, but Jenkins includes back matter that shows the whole animal and includes additional facts. 

This is a great pick for young animal lovers and science classrooms.

Perfect Square

Perfect Square. Written and illustrated by Michael Hall. 2011. New York: Green Willow Books. 40 p. (0061915130).

Author/Illustrator Website: http://www.harpercollins.com/authors/36209/Michael_Hall

Media: cut paper collage

Awards and Honors: none

Audience: Preschoolers

Annotation:
Circumstances force change upon a perfect red square and it is transformed into new and wonderful shapes.

Personal Reaction:
Change can be hard. New possibiltities are sometimes tough to imagine. The perfect square is perfectly happy having four straight and equal sides, but when it is cut and torn and punched it soon is forced to explore new possibilities. Instead of fighting change, the square goes with the flow and transforms itself into new and wonderful things: a river, a garden, a fountain, and a mountain- to name a few. After experiencing all that change, the perfect square learns that it is no longer satisfied being perfectly square and it reinvents itself in a way that incorporates all the wonderful things it has been before.

Michael Hall presents a simple, yet profound message in Perfect Square and illustrates it beautifully using boldly colored paper collage reminiscent of Leo Lionni. This a an example of a book for young readers that can be enjoyed by young and old on many levels- it's a strikingly illustrated and engaging little story with a deeper meaning. Concept tie-ins include colors, shapes and days of the week, and the book lends itself perfectly to a paper collage art project.

Go Away, Big Green Monster!

Go Away, Big Green Monster written and illustrated by Ed Emberley. 1992. New York: Little Brown. 28 p.

Author/Illustrator Website: www.edemberley.com

Media: digital illustrations with laser cut-outs

Awards and Honors: none

Audience: Preschoolers

Annotation:
A not-too-scary monster book for young children that teaches colors and the various parts of the face.

Personal Reaction:
In Go Away, Big Green Monster, Ed Emberley employs bold, colorful illustrations and laser cut pages that reveal and conceal the various parts of the Monster's face. This is a crowd pleaser of a book, especially in read-alouds and storytimes. Both adults and children alike are entranced as they watch Big Green Monster appear and disappear shape by shape. For young children this book is a wonderful tool to discuss a fear of monsters in a gentle and non-threatening way. Children are make the monster disappear as they turn the page, and the last line ("And don't come back! Until I say so.") empowers kids to confront their apprehensions

I Want My Hat Back

I Want My Hat Back
written and illustrated by Jon Klassen. 40 pages. Candlewick Press. 2011.

Media: watercolor

Author/Illustrator Website: www.burstofbeaden.com

Awards: Theodor Seuss Geisel Winner, 2012; New York Times' Ten Best Illustrated Books of The Year, 2011

Summary: Bear asks all the animals of the forest if they have seen his missing hat. 

Personal Reaction:
Bear is missing his hat. One by one, he asks the animals he comes across in the forest if they have seen his hat. They all say no, of course. Bear is polite and patient, but not too observant- as the reader sees that a shifty looking rabbit is, in fact, wearing a pointy red hat. 


As Bear begins to despair he realizes what the reader already knows- that Rabbit has his hat! Bear runs back to the clearing where Rabbit is sitting. After a tense standoff illustrated with a wordless 2-page spread, Bear is shown sitting contentedly, amidst some rather bedraggled vegetation, wearing his pointy red hat. 

What happened? How did Bear manage to get his hat back? And where exactly is Rabbit? I won't give away the ending, but sharp readers quickly infer what Klassen implies here, and the sly joke is central to the joy of this book. 
 
Klassen's illustrations, as well as his text, are understated, wryly humorous, and irreverent. While he has illustrated some recent children's books, this is the first one he has authored himself. If his subsequent books are as excellent as this one, he's definitely a name to watch in children's publishing.

Ship Breaker

Ship Breaker

by Paolo Bacigalupi. 2010. 326 pages. New York: Little Brown.

Author Website: http://windupstories.com

Awards and Honors: 2011 Printz Award, National Book Award Nominee, Andre Norton Award Nominee

Recommended Age: YA, specifically older teens

Annotation: In a post-apocalyptic future, Nailer is a teenage laborer living in grinding poverty and constant danger. When he finds a wrecked clipper ship he must decide whether to kill the only surviving passenger and take everything she has, or to risk everything to rescue her and claim a bigger prize.

Personal Reaction:
In the not-too-distant future, life as we know it is over.

After the fall of the Accelerated Age, cities are gone, governments have crumbled, civilization has been destroyed, and the vast majority of humans exist in desperate and unimaginable poverty.

Ship Breaker is the story of Nailer, a teenage laborer living day-to-day in the most grinding and extreme circumstances imaginable. Nailer works as a “ship-breaker”, scavenging anything he can from the hulks of rotting oil tankers on the gulf water shores of Bright Sands Beach.

In Nailer’s world you need to be lucky and smart to survive.

When a massive hurricane wrecks a clipper yacht on the shore, Nailer gets his chance to make a "lucky strike" and change everything he has ever known. He is faced with the most important decision of his life.

Does he kill the only surviving passenger and take everything she has or does he risk everything to reunite her with her people and claim a bigger prize?

In a world where your entire life is determined by luck, how do you know what’s right and wrong?

Nailer’s decision leads him on a violent and risky journey that challenges his fate as well and makes him question everything he has ever known.

I have to admit, I’m not much of a sci-fi adventure reader, but I decided to see what this book was all about. 10 pages in I was hooked. I couldn’t wait for the next time I could pick up the book and read about Nailer, Pima, Nita and Tool. I found myself holding my breath during suspenseful scenes. Ship Breaker is scary and gritty and violent. But it’s also about hope, and love and loyalty. The bonds between people that exist when nothing else does.

What made this book so compelling for me was how real and possible everything was. This world is terrifying, but you don’t have to stretch your imagination too far to realize that it’s not very far away if the world continues down the path it’s on.

What Will Fat Cat Sit On?

What Will Fat Cat Sit On?written and illustrated by Jan Thomas. 2007. New York: Harcourt Books. 40 pages. Good for groups.

Media: digital illustration

Author/Illustrator Website: http://www.janthomasbooks.com

Awards and Honors: none

Audience: Ages 18 months and up

Annotation: Fat Cat needs something to sit on- will it be the Mouse, the Dog or the Cow?

Personal Response:Jan Thomas’s simple and silly story of a group of animals who are terrified of being sat on by Fat Cat makes an excellent read aloud for young children. The animals are ruled out one by one (to their great relief), and ultimately Mouse suggests that Fat Cat sit on the chair. As Fat Cat contentedly rests on a fluffy, flowered armchair, he is left to ponder what he will have for lunch. Thomas uses bright colors and thick, dark outlines to illustrate her characters, and the illustrations on the front and back covers, as well as the endpapers, are an integral part the story. Her text is spare, simple and direct- making this book a good choice for young audiences, as well as beginning readers.