10 Hungry Rabbits

10 Hungry Rabbits. written and illustrated by Anita Lobel. 2012. 24p. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Author/Illustrator Website: www.anita-lobel.com

Medium: gouache and watercolor
Awards and Honors: none

Audience: 2 and up

Annotation: 
The 10 little rabbits are hungry so they head out to the garden to find colorful vegetables to fill the soup pot.

Personal Reaction:
Lobel presents a simple and sweet color and counting book with 10 Hungry Rabbits. When the 10 rabbit siblings get hungry, Papa suggests they head out to the garden to find ingredients for vegetable soup. One by one, the bunnies pick coloful vegetables- one big purple cabbgae, two white onions, three yellow peppers, and so on. The veggies appear large across the top of the pages for easy counting, and the colors are reinforced below in each rabbit's clothing which matches the vegetables they pick. Papa cuts up the vegetables and Mama cooks, and the entire rabbit family sit down to big bowls of delicious and colorful soup. This is gentle story with appealing illustrations which would lend itself well to a flannel board retelling.

Blue Chameleon

Blue Chameleon. written and illustrated by Emily Gravett. 2010. 32p. New York: Simon and Schuster.

Author/Illustrator Website: www.emilygravett.com

Medium: colored pencil on rough watercolor paper

Awards and Honors:

Audience: 1 and up

Annotation:  
A chameleon tries changing color and shape in order to find a friend.

Personal Reaction: 
An undeniable, yet charming, take on Leo Lionni's A Color of His Own, Blue Chameleon is the story of a lonely chameleon who tries changing color and shape in order to find where he fits in. He mimics everything from a banana, to a snail, to a sock, before he becomes discouraged and turns as white as the page he's on. It takes a sharp eye to make out the faintest outline of another claw that creeps onto the page where the chameleon lies pale and defeated. Readers turn the page to discover that the chameleon has found a friend- another chameleon who turns brightly colored in its excitement at having met someone similar. Gravett's clever illustrations and spartan narration make the story engaging and heartfelt.

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

My Very First Book of Colors

My Very First Book of Colors
written and illustrated by Eric Carle. 2005. board book (unpaged). New York: Penguin Young Readers.

Author/Illustrator Website: http://www.eric-carle.com/home.html

Media: paper collage

Awards and Honors: none

Audience: 1 to 3 years

Annotation: A concept/toy book that teaches colors to young children.

Personal Reaction:
You can't go wrong with Eric Carle's beautiful books, particularly for very young children. My Very First Book of Colors is one of a set of books that teaches simple concepts to young children. Other titles introduce numbers, shapes, animal noises and food.

Sturdy half-sized pages display colors and their names on the top, and various objects on the bottom. Children can flip the pages back and forth to match the colors with the objects (i.e., a blue bird, green trees, purple grapes). Not only do children learn to recognize the colors, but they are also being exposed to color names in print, as well. For very young children, this book is best shared with an adult, but the toddler and pre-k set will delight in matching up the illustrations.

Eric Carle's "My Very First Book" set is also available as an interactive app for the iPhone and iPad. Three levels of game play are available: Easy (ages 1-3), Medium (ages 2 and up) and Hard (ages 3 and up). The app allows children to match up colors and images just like the book, and also includes a memory game for ages 3 and up.

The app is available on the iTunes website: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/eric-carles-my-very-first-app/id392077095?mt=8

Pete The Cat: I Love My White Shoes

Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes
by Eric Litwin, illustrated by James Dean. 2010. New York: HarperCollins. Unpaged. (9780061906220)

Author Website: http://www.ericlitwin.com/

Illustrator Website: none

Media: watercolor

Awards and Honors: none

Audience: Preschoolers

Annotation:
Pete the Cat always keeps his cool- no matter what obstacles life presents.

Personal Reaction:
Pete the Cat is a lovable, laid back cat who loves his shoes.

The Deep Blue Sea: A Book of Colors



The Deep Blue Sea: A Book of Colors
written by Audrey Wood, illustrated by Bruce Wood. 2005. San Francisco: Chronicle Books. Unpaged. (9780811879545)

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

Media: digital illustration

Awards and Honors: none

Audience: pre-k

Annotation:
A colorful, cumulative story for pre-schoolers featuring a brightly illustrated tropical island and its inhabitants.

Personal Reaction:
    Audrey Wood is a master at creating stories that appeal to very young children. Books like The Napping House and The Little Mouse, The Red Ripe Strawberry and The Big Hungry Bear are well-known and loved by children and parents, teachers and librarians alike.

    Wood's simple, immediate prose paired with the colorful and bold illustrations of her son, Bruce Wood, make The Deep Blue Sea a great choice for preschool aged kids. I'm not partial to digital illustrations, and I find the ones in this book a bit charmless, but they do have kid-appeal. Overall, the illustrations are eye-catching and work well with the story. With a cumulative story structure, The Deep Blue Sea is a good choice for a participatory storytime. It's also a color concept book and kids will jump at the opportunity to identify the colors of the various objects in the book as they are added to the pages, one by one.

Props and Flannels:
    I created a flannel story to use with this book in storytime. Using full pieces of navy and sky blue colored felt, I first created a background. Then I created each object from the story so that I could add the pieces one by one onto the background. Typically I freehand my flannel board stories, using the books illustrations as reference, which is what I did here. I decided against creating the rain, the singing fish and the rainbow at the end of the story. These seemed to be actions as well as objects, and were either small or hard to represent using felt. Because I'm reading the book while I'm presenting the flannel board, I don't think the narrative is affected.