Birthday Story Contest

After some encouragement from family and friends, I've decided to enter Susanna Leonard Hill's Birthday Story Contest.  It takes a lot of guts to enter a writing contest for all the world to read, but I decided that this was another stepping stone on my way to attaining my goal of publication.  While this one may never make it into print, it was fun to try out the birthday theme.  Enjoy!

BAILEY BEAR’S BIRTHDAY BAND

By Laura Renauld

250 words

 

“A bugle, please, Mommy?”

Bailey Bear pleaded.

For his birthday,

It was all that he needed.

All day he marched,

Beating a drum.

He grabbed his guitar

And started to strum.

 
Bailey loved music.

He knew in his soul

That learning the bugle

Would be his next goal.

 
His birthday arrived.

The gift on the floor

Was much too big
To fit through the door!

He was disappointed.

It looked out of place.
A bugle would fit
In a small-ish case.
 
Bailey tried to smile
As he lifted the top.
When he got it open,
He was in for a shock!
 

Out danced many instruments,

From A to Z.
A symphony of notes
In perfect harmony.
 
An Atoke,
A Bugle,
Chimes, and
A Drum.
 

An Erhu,

A Flute,
A Guitar,
Harmonium.
 

Iya,

Jembe,
Kidi, and
Lute.

Maracas,

A Ney,
An Oboe,
Pan flute.
 

A Qanun,

Recorder,
Saxophone, and
Trombone.
 

Ukulele,

Violin,
Washboard,
Xylophone.
 

The last two instruments

Didn’t dally or dither:
A drum called a Yonggo,
And, of course, a Zither.
 
The instruments lined up
In alphabetical order.
They all took their cue
From an invisible conductor. 
 
“Happy Birthday to You”
Played so loud and so clear,
Bailey basked in the music
And grinned ear-to-ear.
 
THE END
 

Glossary:

Atoke: African boat-shaped, metal bell
Erhu: Chinese fiddle
Iya: Cuban drum
Jembe: African drum
Kidi: African drum
Ney: Asian flute
Qanun: West Asian zither
Yonggo: East Asian drum

Perfect Picture Book Friday

Title: Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge
Author/Illustrator: Mem Fox/ Julie Vivas
Publisher/Date: Kane/Miller Book Publishers/ 1985

Genre/Audience: Fiction/Ages 4+

Themes: memory, old age, secrets, friendship, intergenerational relationships

Opening: "There was once a small boy called Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge and what's more he wasn't very old either.  His house was next door to an old people's home and he knew all the people that lived there."

Synopsis: From School Library Journal: "A small boy, Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge, knows and likes all of the old folks in the home next door, but his favorite is Miss Nancy Alison Delacourt Cooper because she has four names, too. Hearing that she has lost her memory, he asks the old folks what a memory is ("Something from long ago" ; "Something that makes you laugh;" "Something warm;" etc.), ponders the answers, then gathers up memories of his own (seashells collected long ago last summer, a feathered puppet with a goofy expression, a warm egg fresh from the hen) to give her. In handling Wilfrid's memories, Nancy finds and shares her own. The illustrations are splashy, slightly hazy watercolors in rosy pastels which contrast the boy's fidgety energy with his friends' slow, careful movements and capture the story's warmth and sentiment." John Peters, New York Public Library

Why I Love This Book:
Children can be open, honest, sincere, and literal, all of which make Wilfrid endearing.  They often don't see the social labels or notice the differences among people, making them the perfect conduit through which to open our adult eyes. 

Resources:
Writing prompt: What's a memory to you? Why?

Make a collection of artifacts, like Wilfrid does, and tell the stories behind each one.

Hear the story read here: http://www.storylineonline.net/  Site also includes a number of related activities.


For more links to Perfect Picture Books, a collection of bloggers who contribute at Susanna Leonard Hill’s site, click here.

My Favorites: Happy Birthday to Me!

It is May 16 and it is my birthday.  What better way to celebrate than to share with you my favorite children’s books?  At this point, I need to include a disclaimer to say that these are my favorites AT THIS MOMENT.  Subject to change on a whim or a new read.  But isn’t that everyone’s prerogative?  To change their minds if something better comes along?  Or to allow different favorites for different times in our lives?

As I write this, I am already overwhelmed by the choosing.  I’m sure that I will leave out a really important, life-changing book and regret it!  Thank goodness for edit-friendly blogs and understanding readers! 

This post will take the form of a list, rather than short reviews for two reasons:

1.      The list is much longer than usual, so it would take a lot of time to summarize each book, which brings me to…

2.       My selfish need to give myself the gift of time – to read!  (It is my birthday, after all!)

Without further ado, here are my (current) favorites, in no particular order.  I’d love to hear yours.  Please share!

Board Book: Hippos Go Berserk! (Sandra Boynton)

                Why?  Because Sandra Boynton never dumbs down her vocabulary, even for the littlest readers.  And it is a hysterical concept book.

Early Reader Series: Mr. Putter and Tabby (Cynthia Rylant/Arthur Howard)

            Why?  Mr. Putter and his old cat Tabby are so endearing, as are their neighbors, Mrs. Teaberry and her dog, Zeke.  Each one has a complex personality that shines through every story.  I especially love Mr. Putter and Tabby Write the Book.  Can you guess why?  It is inspirational J

Fiction Picture Book: (how to decide?!?) All the Places to Love (Patricia MacLachlan/Mike Wimmer)

                Why?  It makes me cry every time.  And the paintings by Mike Wimmer are gorgeous, transporting the reader to rolling, rural farmland.

Wordless Picture Book: Tuesday (David Wiesner)

                Why?  I love frogs.  So frogs surprised by a night when they can fly?  Even better!

Middle Grade Novel: The Giver (Lois Lowry)

                Why?  I have read this book every year since I picked it up, which I think was in high school.  Utopian/Dystopian literature has a special appeal for me and this one is an incredible look into the darkness lurking in the secrets of a perfect society.

Author: Cynthia Rylant

                Why?  She is such a versatile author, having written early readers, poetry, picture books, middle grade novels, memoir, fantasy, narrative nonfiction…I’m sure there are some genres I’ve left out.  So many of my favorite books are written by her.  She is the writer I long to be in my dreams.  Just like her series Mr. Putter and Tabby, she is inspirational.

Poetry: Toasting Marshmallows: Camping Poems (Kristine O’Connell George/Kate Kiesler)

                Why?  These poems remind me of camping with my family as a child.  The title poem is especially engaging, as it describes the roasting techniques of my brother and I perfectly.  Or at least that’s the way I remember it J

Nonfiction Picture Book: An Egg is Quiet (Dianna Aston/Sylvia Long)

                Why?  This gorgeous book has the feel of poetry, the facts of nonfiction, and the visual appeal of an art show.

Childhood Fave (MG novel):  A Wrinkle in Time (Madeleine L’Engle)

Why?  I had such a visceral experience reading this book, sitting on my bed, knees tucked up to my chin, heart pounding when Meg has to walk down the street of identical houses toward IT, a gigantic  brain responsible for the Dark Thing, that I don’t want to read it again since I’m afraid I won’t enjoy this book the same way.

Mother-to-Be Book: MA!  There’s Nothing to Do Here!: A Word from Your Baby-in-Waiting (Barbara Park/Viviana Garofoli)

                Why?  When I was pregnant, I read this book many times to my bump.  I could never make it to the end without crying.  Hormones or no, have tissues on hand for this very funny, very sweet book that captures the longing to be a mother so perfectly.

Poetic Novel: Love That Dog (Sharon Creech)

                Why?  This poetic novel, told by Jack through his poetry journal, lets the reader into his thoughts and feelings in such a unique way.  You follow him from defiant evasion of poetry, to catharsis through it.  This was a page-turner for me.  I think I read it in one sitting.

Childhood Fave (Pic Book): Christina Katerina and the Box (Patricia Lee Gauch/Doris Burn)

                Why?  Ingenuity and imagination are the playmates of children.  Find this classic and see what I mean!

Perfect Picture Book Friday

Title: Long Night Moon
Author/Illustrator: Cynthia Rylant/ Mark Siegel
Publisher/Date: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers/ 2004
Genre/Audience: Nonfiction/Ages 3-6

Themes: Native American culture, moon, poetry, months

Opening: "Long ago Native Americans gave names to the full moons they watched throughout the year.  Each month had a moon.  And each moon had its name...."

Synopsis: From School Library Journal: "Books this good come along once in a blue moon. Rylant opens this radiant offering by explaining: "Long ago Native Americans gave names to the full moons they watched throughout the year. Each month had a moon. And each moon had a name.…" The two-page illustration shows a woman holding a baby and looking at the nighttime sky. Scenes of their house and the surrounding countryside accompany the 12 poems that follow, beginning with January and tracing the cycle of the year. To read the text is to be bathed in the magic of moonlight, magic extended by Siegel's luminous charcoal, pencil, and pastel landscapes. February's picture is stark and cold; a solitary stag, his breath a white cloud, stands by an icicle-shrouded bear den. The stag appears again in March as does the den without the icicles, and the painting glows with green tones: "a Sap Moon rises/over/melting ponds,/sleepy bears,/small green trees./It tells a promise/and a hope." The woman and the now-older child reappear at the end and again gaze at the orb from their garden gazebo: "And in December/the Long Night Moon waits/and waits/and waits/for morning./This/is the faithful moon./This one is your friend." Savor this thoughtful book, and pair it with Jane Yolen's Owl Moon (Philomel, 1987) for a lyrical bedtime read-aloud."–Kathleen Whalin, York Public Library, ME 


Why I Love This Book:
Cynthia Rylant is brilliant and so versatile.  She can write poetry, picture books, early readers, middle grade novels, memoir, nonfiction....I'm sure I've left something out.  This poetic, nonfiction book is a favorite.  Short, free-verse poems paint a picture of each full moon during the year, each with its own personality.  This book came to mind this week because of the enormous full moon we were graced with.  It is May.  It was the "Flower Moon" and it was "Happy to be here."

Resources:
Choose your birth month.  Name the moon, just as the Native Americans did, and write a poem about it.

Study moon phases. 

Study Native American traditions.  Compare them to your own traditions.  How are they related to the calendar year?

For more links to Perfect Picture Books, a collection of bloggers who contribute at Susanna Leonard Hill’s site, click here.

Happy Mother's Day!

Recently, my three year old has started to say, with a mischievous grin, "I don't love you," whenever I tell him I love him.  I know that he is learning about language and emotions and playing with meanings, but it is a bit heart-rending, nonetheless.  Luckily, my 21 month old is just starting to mimic "I love you," so from him I get "Ah-wuv-oo", which is heart-melting.

Being a mother runs the gamut of emotions on a daily basis, but loving your child never changes.  I've learned to relish the unexpected hug and the happy "Yay!" that accompanies an announcement that we are going somewhere they love, whether it is the park, the library, or the front yard.  These make up for the tantrums and the daily dinner mantra: "I don't like this..."

Happy Mother's Day!  Enjoy these heart-felt books.

My Mama Had a Dancing Heart (Author: Libba Moore Gray; Illustrator: Raul Colon) – The lyrical prose follows a mother and daughter as they dance their way through the seasons.  With wild abandon, the mother shows her daughter how to live joyfully and engage deeply with the natural world.  This book is an ideal choice for mothers, children, dancers, poets, and artists. 

Someday (Author: Alison McGhee; Illustrator: Peter H. Reynolds) – I have used this book as a new mother gift and a Mother’s Day gift, perfect for mothers and daughters.  It is not so much a story, as a dream list, beginning with a mother and her baby girl (“One day I counted your fingers and kissed each one.”) and ending with the girl as an old woman, remembering her mother.  Beautifully illustrated moments in time tug at the heart strings.  Be forewarned, this is a tear-jerker.  But sometimes, you just need to cry at the beauty the parent-child relationship can hold.

Tweak Tweak (Author: Eve Bunting; Illustrator: Sergio Ruzzier) – A little elephant asks many questions of her mother while they are on a walk together.  This sweet book highlights a child’s curiosity and a mother’s role in teaching, encouraging, loving, and, eventually, letting go.

Motherbridge of Love (Text by ‘anonymous’ for the charity Mother Bridge of Love; Illustrated by Josée Masse) – This beautiful text deals with the two different kinds of love: that of a birth mother and an adoptive mother.  Adoptive children often question where they come from and this book is a sensitive way to begin a conversation.  The charity Mother Bridge of Love was started in 2004 to create a resource for adopted Chinese children, that bridges China and the West.

Mama’s Day (Author: Linda Ashman; Illustrator: Jan Ormerod) – Celebrating a mother’s love for her child, this book highlights the special things mothers do with and for their babies, while the side illustrations are rich springboards for lap stories as you share this book with a child.  A quintessential Mother’s Day pick!

Perfect Picture Book Friday

Title: I Feel Better with a Frog in My Throat: History's Strangest Cures
Author/Illustrator: Carlyn Beccia
Publisher/Date: Houghton Mifflin Books for Children/ 2010
Genre/Audience: Nonfiction/Grades 1-4

Themes: history, medicine

Opening: "Instructions for use:
1. Some cures in this book are gross.  Please don't eat lunch while reading."

Synopsis: From Booklist - Author-illustrator Beccia has gathered some of history’s strangest cures for what ails you. Some of these are silly (puppy kisses), some are sticky (spider webs), some are stinky (skunk oil), and some are sweetly sentimental (a mother’s kisses). Do any of them work? You bet, and part of the fun is guessing which ones (don’t you dare turn to the page where the answers are revealed). Arranged by malady (coughs, colds, fevers, etc.), each section is typically introduced by three possible cures, with wounds getting nine choices. The pages that follow reveal which cures work, why, and when and where they might have originated. Beccia’s droll text is greatly enhanced by her witty single- and double-page illustrations, filled with humorous details. Boys will especially enjoy the ickier cures (anyone for urine drinking?), while teachers and librarians will welcome the careful research and the useful appended bibliography. Grades 1-4. --Michael Cart

Why I Love This Book: 
The concept, organization, and illustrations are superb.  Not to mention interesting and educational.  If you have ever wondered about the origin of "frog in my throat", read this book!

Resources:
Math: Sort the cures by origin.  Create a graph for which cures worked and which didn't.

Family Research: Ask your parents and grandparents is there were any unusual ways to treat colds, hiccups, etc. when they were kids.

For more links to Perfect Picture Books, a collection of bloggers who contribute at Susanna Leonard Hill’s site, click here.

Cars and Trucks

I have two boys and they like typical boy things.  Anything with an engine absorbs their attention: planes, trains, big machines, tractors, buses, motorcycles, trucks and cars.  I've already done a post on train books (which are truly their favorite), but trucks and cars come in a close second.

I have to admit, I've never really understood the thrill of things that VROOM.  Engines have never excited me and my view of cars is purely utilitarian.  (Yes, I own an minivan and I have no underlying feelings that this fact makes a negative statement on my life.)  But no one told me that having boys automatically signs you up for an intense immersion course on "things that go".  Believe it or not, I now know the names of many construction vehicles (they are not all generic "diggers".)  And most surprisingly, I have come to LOVE some truck and car books, but probably not for the same reasons my sons love them.  They love these books because engines  and fun noises are involved.  I love these books because they are funny, well-written, and cleverly illustrated.  They just happen to be about a truck or a car. 

So here's my list of favorites, which I don't mind reading over and over again to my boys.  (Note: I have only included fiction books.  There are MANY nonfiction books that are worth your time if you have a truck-aficionado at home.)


Little Blue Truck (Author: Alice Schertle; Illustrator: Jill McElmurry) - This book has moved into my top ten favorite picture books of all time.  Okay, I don't really have a top ten list, but if I did, it would be there!  It is adorable.  Little Blue Truck is the epitome of a good friend.  All the barnyard animals love him and he comes to the aid of a not-so-nice dump truck.  A bouncy rhyme bumps the reader along the road as you come to the satisfying conclusion.  And don't forget to look closely at the illustrations.  The toad has quite a personality!


Cars Galore (Author: Peter Stein; Illustrator: Bob Staake) - The whimsical, rhyming text of this book pairs with vibrant, off-beat illustrations that stretch the imagination.  Just try to picture this page: "Hundred-feet car./ Incomplete car./ Scary shark car./ Noah's Ark car!"  Reminiscent of Dr. Seuss, the crazy cars and funky drivers make this book a hit that my kids want to hear and just sit and look at again and again.

Sheep in a Jeep (Author: Nancy Shaw; Illustrator: Margot Apple) - This deceivingly simple book is full of wit, humor, and rhyme that makes it a page turner and a vocabulary builder: "Sheep tug.  Sheep shrug.  Sheep yelp.  Sheep get help."  (from two pigs with tattoos!)  While these sheep are not too bright, they solve their jeep problems in an unexpected way.  Love this one!

 

Trucks: Whizz! Zoom! Rumble! (Author: Patricia Hubbell; Illustrator: Megan Halsey) - This book is one of a series by this fabulous author/illustrator team.  The cadence and rhyme is similar to Cars Galore and the collage illustrations are full of puns and unusual drivers.  For example, the phrase "New trucks" has an accompanying illustration of a stork driving a "deliveries" truck full of babies! 

My Truck is Stuck! (Author: Kevin Lewis; Illustrator: Daniel Kirk) - This book is so well loved in our house that nearly every page has been repaired due to exuberant page turning!  And it is very wrinkly.  What better testament can you get for a children's book?  Another rhyming book, this one uses repetition, counting, a cyclical story, and a variety of helpers that come along to get the truck un-stuck to drive the story.  Now if illustrations tell at least half the story in a picture book, this one goes even further.  I don't want to give anything away, but you HAVE to read the illustrations to get the joke at the end of this book!  That's all I'm going to say.  I LOVE this truck book!

Run, don't walk, to your nearest library for all these terrific car and truck books!  Post a comment to share your favorites.