Feathers for Lunch, written and illustrated by Lois Ehlert

Age range: 18 months and up

A cat goes bird hunting but her bell keeps scaring them off.

Kitten’s First Full Moon, written and illustrated by Kevin Henkes

Age range: 18 months and up

Kitten sees the full moon and thinks it is a bowl of milk. She chases it and never quite catches it.

Ginger and the Mystery Visitor, written and illustrated by Charlotte Voake

Age range: 18 months and up

A roaming cat finds lots of people to feed him, despite having two square meals a day at home.

Magic Thinks Big, written and illustrated by Elisha Cooper

Age range: 2 years and up

Magic the cat thinks about his next move. Options include napping, checking the fridge for food, and having blueberry pie with some bears.

Wabi Sabi, by Mark Reibstein. Illustrated by Ed Young.

Age range: 3 years and up.

Wabi Sabi, a cat, goes on a quest to find out the meaning of her name.

The Tale of Tom Kitten, written and illustrated by Beatrix Potter

Age range: 3 years and up

Tom Kitten and his sisters sully their clothes, leaving their mother affronted.

Catwings, by Ursula K. Le Guin. Illustrated by S.D. Schindler

Age range: 4 years and up

This is the first book in the Catwings series. Four kittens, born with wings, fly from their dangerous life in the city and make their home in the country.

“The Falling Raindrop,” by Neil Johnson and Joel Chin

A raindrop is afraid to fall from a cloud, then finds itself enjoying the wild ride.

Age range: 18 months and up

“The Little Yellow Leaf,” written and illustrated by Carin Berger

A little leaf is hesitant to let go of its branch as she watches the transition from fall to winter.

Age range: 2 years and up

“Giraffes Can’t Dance,” by Giles Andreae. Illustrated by Guy Parker-Reese

Gerald the giraffe feels out of place because he can’t dance, then he finds his own rhythm by listening to the world around him.

Age range: 2 years and up

“Just One More Swim,” by Caroline Pitcher. Illustrated by Jenny Jones

Two polar bear cubs are hesitant to swim in the ocean for the first time, but end up loving it.

Age range: 2 years and up

“You Can Do It, Sam,” by Amy Hest. Illustrated by Anita Jeram

Sam goes all by himself to deliver homemade cakes to his neighbors.

Age range: 2 years and up

“Stella, Queen of the Snow,” and other Stella and Sam books, written and illustrated by Mary-Louise Gay

It’s Sam’s first snowstorm, and he’s reluctant to play in the snow despite his sister’s exuberance.

Age range: 2 1/2 years and up

“The Forest,” written and illustrated by Claire Nivola

A little mouse explores the forest that he’s always feared.

Age range: 3 years and up

“A New House for Mouse,” written and illustrated by Petr Horáček

Mouse can’t fit her big apple into her little house, so she goes looking for a new home.

Age range: 18 months and up

“Tiny’s Big Adventure,” by Martin Waddell. Illustrated by John Lawrence.

Tiny, a mouse, and his big sister go exploring.

Age range: 2 years and up

“Mother, Mother, I want Another,” by Maria Polushkin Robbins. Illustrated by Jon Goodell.

A baby mouse and his mother have a miscommunication at bedtime.

Age range: 2 years and up

“Mouse Soup,” written and illustrated by Arnold Lobel

A mouse tells silly stories to trick the weasel who is trying to cook him.

Age range: 2 1/2 years and up

“Livingstone Mouse,” by Pamela Duncan Edwards. Illustrated by Henry Cole

A young mouse tries to find the most wondrous place on earth (China) to make his new home.

Age range: 3 years and up



“The Subway Mouse,” written and illustrated by Barbara Reid

A young mouse finds his way out of the subway tunnel he grew up in.

Age range: 3 years and up

“The Tale of Two Bad Mice,” “The Tale of Mrs. Tittlemouse,” “The Tailor of Glouster,” and “The Tale of Johnny Town Mouse,” written and illustrated by Beatrix Potter

Delightful tales of mice raiding a dollhouse, tidying up after bees, doing a tailor’s work for him, and visiting unfamiliar places.

Age range: 3 1/2 years and up

“Stuart Little,” by E.B. White

Our first big chapter book! Stuart is an adventurous little mouse who doesn’t get into situations that are too scary for a four year old.

Age range: 4 years and up

The alphabet keeper herself has a “Persepolis” like quality: black hair, big eyes, strong eyebrows, and a matronly knot on the top of her head. She’s a convincing captor who gets the dark ending that she deserves. In contrast, the letters are mischievous and sprightly, their counters filled with eyeballs and their stems notched with grins. They whiz and fly about with visible joy.

The word play aspect of the book is completely over Zadie’s head, but she really likes pointing out all the letters and is starting to catch on to the idea that each letter has it’s own sound. I can imagine this book being fun as a kid is learning to read and maybe even more fun once she’s ready for word games.

“If the Dinosaurs Came Back” makes it very clear that the dinosaurs are no longer with us while reading (happily) like a brainstorming session amongst 6-year old dinosaur enthusiasts. Each page features a different task that a dinosaur could perform if they made a comeback: Taking the place of ladders for painters, giving dentists a whole lot of teeth to take care of, keeping the grass short, etc. It’s a potentially great way to convey their scale, and some of the scenarios do this well: A dinosaur could, for instance, give people rides to work. But it’s misleading to suggest that dinosaurs were as tall as mountains, thus giving mountain climbers new mountains to climb. And it’s doubly inaccurate to suggest that dinosaurs could push rainclouds away so that the sun shines all the time. But it’s a fantasy, right?

Our favorite part of the book is the key in the back, which shows a couple dozen dinosaurs and lists their names. We frequently skip right to it so we can “talk about all dinosaurs,” and I’m planning to photocopy it before returning it to the library. Any misgivings I have about the human-dinosaur interactions or the errors in scale are more than made up for by this key. It’s unbelievably adorable to hear Zadie rattling off names like corythosaurus and diplodocus, and I’m grateful to be learning learning along with her.

We’re in full-on dinosaur obsession mode here and I’d love to find a few good dinosaur books. If you have any suggestions please leave them in the comments.

The story is simple and sweet. Mister Muster, a well-dressed fellow with rosy cheeks, spends every sunny day at the zoo. The animals love him so much that when the elephant steals the zookeeper’s key and lets all of the animals out of their cages, they go straight to Mister Muster’s house. He happily lets them in and serves them a big chocolate cake while the zookeeper and a crew of weapons-brandishing policemen (“Open up in the name of the law!”) search for the missing animals. They eventually find them at Mister Muster’s and bribe them back to the zoo by offering Muster a job as the assistant zookeeper.

“A Zoo for Mister Muster” is a good companion to “Goodnight, Gorilla,” by Peggy Rathmann. Both stories involve animals letting themselves out of their cages. But the former ends with a person going back to the zoo with the animals while the latter ends with a gorilla and mouse sneaking back out of the zoo and into the zookeeper’s bed. I find it odd that both of these books have animals getting out of their cages because they want to be with people, rather than for any of the real reasons why animals might want to break free. But I suppose the stories wouldn’t be as heart-warming if the animals trotted off into the jungle, lazy and vulnerable after years of being fed blueberry muffins from Starbucks.

In this book Mr. McGreely plants a vegetable garden. When the sun goes down three hungry bunnies get into his garden and “Muncha! Muncha! Muncha!” He wakes up in the morning, sees his decimated plants, and builds a fence around the garden to keep the bunnies out. The bunnies get in again, and he builds a bigger fence around the smaller fence around the garden. The battle escalates until there are two fences, a trench, and a high brick wall around the garden. This keeps the bunnies out until they sneak into McGreely’s basket as he’s climbing over the wall to collect his veggies. The story is simple but all too familiar to anyone who has planted a garden with high hopes.

The illustrations are scribbly and earth-toned, but it’s the text that stands out. It’s filled with internal rhymes, so it doesn’t sound quite like a poem, but is as fun to read. The sounds of the bunnies breaking into the garden become more involved with each additional hurdle they face so that by the time they’re navigating the trench and two fences we hear:

Tippy-tippy-tippy, Pat!

Dive-paddle, Splash! Splash! Splash!

Dig-scrabble, Scratch! Scratch Scratch!

Spring-hurdle, Dash! Dash! Dash!

Muncha! Muncha! Muncha!

This book has more words per page and a more complex plot than Zadie is accustomed to, but we always make it the whole way through. To my surprise, when she wants to read this one she doesn’t say anything about the bunnies or about munching. Instead, she says “Em-greely.”

“Boo Hoo Bird” is the story of a blue bird who gets bonked on the head while playing catch with a raccoon. He’s hurt and no one seems to be able to make him feel better despite offering hugs, kisses, cookies, or rounds of hide-and-seek. When all of the bird’s friends are crying, upset because they can’t make him feel better, he cheers up and you realize that he’s been milking it the whole time.

Much as I’d like to believe that Zadie’s with me on the awkwardness of the book’s conclusion, I think her aversion to the book has more to do with the fact that the bird’s inability to feel better doesn’t fit any of the story lines she knows. She’s in a big storytelling phase and knows a dozen or so stories about things that she’s experienced, whether she remembers the actual events or not. One of these stories is about her cousin who bumped his head. We go through the story pretty much daily: Charlie bumped his head, he cried, his mom picked him up, gave him a hug and kiss, rubbed his back, and said “It’s OK, Charlie.” The protagonist’s slow recovery in “Boo Hoo Bird” deviates from the story she knows so well, and I think it distresses her. I don’t think she’s consciously aware of the concept of manipulating a situation so that others can continue to dote on you, though if we’re up from 3:30-5:00am again tonight I’ll start to wonder. But for now she clearly doesn’t get that bird is being a whiny baby.

We have the book for another couple of weeks before it has to go back to the library, and I’m hoping that Zadie comes around and gives it another shot. The illustrations are bold, bright, and cartoony. The pages are filled with chaotic flowers and the animals’ expressions are loving and kind. And for an extremely mom-attached kid it’s a good example of the ways in which different people can help.

The book starts off with a girl looking sadly out of her window at the rain falling on a cherry tree. “Who wants rain?” she asks as she listens to the sound of the rain hitting the windowpanes and awning. We see trees and flowers, ducks and fish, frogs and worms enjoying the showers while cats, old trucks, and the neighbor’s dog take their places inside to stay dry. The girl pokes around outside, catching raindrops in her hat, chasing her umbrella, and observing animals until the rain stops. The story ends with her jumping happily into a puddle.

"Down, down, down come the drops of rain."

"Who likes rain? Not my neighbor's dog."

The text is filled with rainy, rhyming onomatopoeias: “Pit-pit-pit on the windowpane,” and “Pitty-plip-plop, Pitty-pat-SPLAT,” and “On my umbrella rum-a-tum-tum” that pleasantly roll of the tongue. The illustrations are done with Prismacolors on watercolor paper, and they have a lovely, grainy, washed-out texture. The pages are filled with grey streaks of rain falling onto spring green grass and colorful raincoats–again a nice combination of gloomy and cheerful. Zadie loves the rain sounds as well as guessing the answers to questions like “Who likes rain? Croak, croak…” Yee has a website with links to more illustrations and books. I’m especially curious to check out “Tracks in the Snow.”

“The Odd Egg” is about a duck who finds a big, spotted egg. He adores it, but all of his friends make fun of it. While all of the other birds’ eggs hatch, he sits patiently on his egg knitting scarves and booties. When the egg finally hatches it is <spoiler alert> an alligator*! The alligator then follows the duck home wearing the scarf and booties and saying “Mama.” It’s kind of improbable given the dietary preferences of alligators, but it’s incredible cute to see an alligator wearing webbed ducky booties.

As with Gravett’s other books that we’ve read, it’s the pictures that pull you in rather than the text. “The Odd Egg” looks like a sketchbook with layers and layers of pencil and watercolor. The birds’ words are written by hand in pencil, which I love. The animals look comfortable and friendly and a little harried. One of the loveliest features is a set of mini-pages (ala “The Very Hungry Caterpillar”) that flip to reveal a series of eggs hatching.

*I thought it was a crocodile at first, but turns out it’s an alligator. And I finally looked up some information about telling the difference between the two.