Duke Ellington: The Piano Prince and His Orchestra By: Andrea and Brian Pinkney

This picture book by husband and wife team Andrea Davis Pinkney and Brian Pinkney won a Caldecott Honor and the Coretta Scott King Award in 1998. It is the story of Duke Ellington. The text is written with the slang and dialect of the time and place where this great jazz musician grew up. Words like "homebodies" and "kickin'" as well as phrases like "hot - buttered bop and lots of sassy - cool tones" and "when the joint started to jump" give the reader a front row seat. It is also a good way to get kids of all ages interested in an era other than their own. A great conversation could be started about slang and how the youth of every generation has it's own language so to speak. The illustrations are done on scratch board with luma dyes, gouache and oil paint. Almost all of the illustrations are full bleeds, none are confined to a frame. All of the illustrations compliment the text beautifully. When the text compares the playing of the sax to the tail of a kite in the wind the painting shows the sax player in the park with a kite flying by. When the author says that "Duke painted colors with his band's sound", the painting shows beautiful colors streaming out of the instruments with Duke as the artist. These illustrations are the perfect compliment to the language used by the author. Together the text and illustrations of this book are a great way to introduce children to many topics. From biographies and history, to jazz and slang.

Rapunzel By: Paul O. Zelinsky

This classic fairytale retold and illustrated by Paul O. Zelinsky won the Caldecott Medal in 1997. It is easy to see why. The illustrations are oil paintings. The style is Italian Renaissance. Each illustration is framed so that they look as if they could all be hanging in a museum. The story is also well written. It is truly an important piece to have in any collection of fairy tales. However, what I found even more intriguing than the actual story were the three pages of research at the end. Paul O. Zelinsky was able to uncover a broad history of this tale that spans the countries of France, Italy and Germany and dates back as far as 1634. The story has taken on many forms and names. He shares with us many interesting facts. For instance, the original story had the pregnant mother craving parsley (petrosine) and the daughter's name was then Petrosinella. The antagonist also ranges from a sorceress to a witch to a fairy. She is sometimes motherly to the girl and sometimes treats her as a prisoner. Zelinsky states that he has tried to bring together the most appealing aspects of all of the forms of the tale. I think he has done a marvelous job.

Inch By Inch By: Leo Lionni

As you all know by now I am a huge fan of Eric Carle. I have also always enjoyed Leo Lionni's work. So I was not surprised to find out that Eric Carle was inspired by the work of Lionni and actually credits him with inspiring him to create children's books and for using graphic design to speak to children. The two were friends. Both artists worked for the graphics department of major publications (Carle for New York Times, Lionni for Fortune Magazine)and in the field of advertising. The similarities in their work are obvious. Both used their love of nature to inspire their stories. Both used collage as a main technique. And both used a lot of white space in their illustrations to draw attention to the important aspects of the piece. The major difference between these authors are the color palate of choice. Carle uses bright, vivid colors that are not necessarily true to nature. Where as, Lionni sticks to the more natural, muted tones that one would most likely see in nature. Inch By Inch is Lionni's second book. The story is about an inch worm that finds himself in a precarious situation. He is about to be eaten by a robin (every worm's worst nightmare I am sure). He is no ordinary worm however and he is able to convince the bird not to eat him by explaining to the robin that he is useful. "I measure things" he tells the bird and then proceeds to prove his worth by measuring the robin's tail. He is not eaten. Instead he is taken to a place where "other birds need to be measured". In this way Lionni is able to introduce children to the distinguishing characteristics of many different species of birds from the extraordinary beak of the toucan to the flamingos tremendously long legs. At the end of the book the inch worm is able to escape by playing to the vanity of a nightingale. This book reminds me of many of the traditional fables we all read as we were growing up. In fact Lionni has been called Aesop for the 20Th century. Leo Lionni is an author who deserves our attention. And Inch By Inch is a book that is worth reading.

Knuffle Bunny By: Mo Willems

Now that I am a blogaholic I find myself wanting to know more about my favorite authors. I don't know why it never occurred to me before. My daughter Sarah and I have truly enjoyed the books Mo Willems has written. Mo has his own blog and responds to emails and questions posted there. What a great way for Sarah to begin connecting her favorite stories to the real people who wrote them. Anyway, on with my response. Knuffle Bunny is an adorable book for preschoolers and their parents. It is a story about a daddy, his daughter and his daughter's favorite toy. The three of them take a trip to the laundry mat and the toy is lost. Anyone who has children knows how traumatic the loss of a favorite toy can be for a young child. Of course, in "typical" fashion. The daddy doesn't even know why Trixie is upset (she can't speak yet). As soon as the Mommy sees them she asks "Where's Knuffle Bunny?". The whole family races back to the laundromat and Daddy, in heroic fashion, finds Knuffle Bunny. The illustrations are wonderful. The characters are done in a cartoon fashion as is the style of this author. The rest of the illustrations are photographs of Mo's actual neighborhood in Brooklyn New York. The combination of drawings and photos make a very unique visual experience. The fact that the Main character is based on his daughter and the story takes place in his neighborhood gives it another neat dimension. Mo Willems won a Caldecott for his Pigeon book (which I also love), I think he should have won one for this one as well.

Let's Go Home: The Wonderful Things About a House By: Cynthia Rylant Illustrated By: Wendy Anderson Halperin

This is a wonderful picture book to share with your students or your own children. The theme is one of Mrs. Rylant's favorite; appreciate where you are and who you are with. This book screams the sentiment, "Home Is Where The Heart Is". The text in this book walks us through the rooms of a house starting with the front porch and ending in the attic. Each room has two or more pages devoted to it. The main focus of the text is not the room itself however,but the goings on in each room. That is what makes the room special. That is what makes a house a home. The illustrations in this book are remarkable as well. Every single page is a full bleed. Many of the pages are done in a style that is similar to a scrap book with lots of little snap shots of life in that room. The colors are warm and inviting and there are so many things to see on each page that you could read the book several times and see something different each time. The style is folkish and the medium is water color. I loved sharing this book with my daughter. We were able to have a wonderful discussion about our home and our family as well as her grandparents house and the houses of other friends and relatives. We decided that although all the houses were different the thing that they had in common, the most important thing was that the people we love and who love us are there. I would like to share this book with students as well. I would like to use the book to spring board discussion about their homes. I recently came across a cool art activity in a highlight magazine that would go along well with this story. Essentially the student uses magazines and newspapers to find pictures of different rooms in a house or the things that go in a house. They are to draw the outline of a house including the rooms and then "decorate" the rooms with the pictures they found. I think this would provide some insight into what the child views as important in their homes. It would also mirror the style of illustration used by Wendy Anderson Halperin uses in this book. Here is yet another book that I MUST now purchase.

Yeh Shen: A Cinderella Story from China Retold By: Ai-Ling Louie Illustrated by: Ed Young

This story is a retelling of the oldest known version of the Cinderella story. The author has included research about the history of the story in the front of the book. According to this research it dates to the T'ang Dynasty (618-907 A.D.). The book is very well done and has received several awards: AlA Notable Book, IRA-CBC Children's Choice Book, and A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year Award. Like Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters Yeh-Shen uses text and illustrations to portray an accurate and respectful retelling of this ancient folk tale. This story has many similarities to the story of Cinderella that I as an American girl grew up hearing. There is a mean step mother,an ugly step sister, never ending chores, a magical helper, a ball, and a missing shoe. Differences between this story and the version Disney gave us include a fish granting wishes instead of a Fairy Godmother, one stepsister instead of two, and a King who is presented with the shoe as a gift instead of a prince who finds the shoe after chasing his true love from the ball. Although the text is written in English the pages are presented in blocks which give the book a similiar look to the book as it was written in Chinese. The illustrations are cone in colors and style that give them a very authentic feeling. There are almost no full bleeds in the book. The pictures are important to the story but, do not overwhelm the text. I found this to be an enjoyable and worthwhile read.

Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters Written and Illustrated by: John Steptoe

This is an African Cinderella Tale. It is a Reading Rainbow book and it won a Caldecott Honor in 1987. John Steptoe does a wonderful job of relating this traditional African Folktale. The text of the story comes from a Kaffir Folktale written down in 1895 by G.M. Theal. The names of the characters come from the Shona language, Mufaro means happy man, Nyasha means mercy, Manyara means ashamed and Nyoka means snake. The illustrations were inspired by the people and places in and near Zimbabwe. The combination of text and illustrations results in a beautiful and respectful look at one aspect of African culture. The author thanks the people who helped with the research and dedicates the book to the children of South Africa. This is one of many, many variations on the tale of Cinderella. There are similarities: the good sister and the mean one, the seeking out of a wife by the prince, and the structure of the story ie: Once upon a time....... and they lived happily ever after. There are also differences: the prince magically changes shape to discover which girl is the most worthy, there is no evil step mother, and the Cinderella character does not need saving by a fairy godmother. The illustrations in this book add much to the story. Almost every page is a full bleed. The medium is pencil and watercolor. The illustrator chose deep rich colors and based each illustration on the customs, people and landscape of Zimbabwe. I enjoyed this story for both its look into the African culture and one of its fairy tales and as a welcome addition to stories where good triumphs over evil.