Now this is a BIG book. It is heavy, larger than a regular book and quite thick. It reminds me more of an encyclopedia or resource book than your average picture book. Half of the reason is because it is more of an anthology of a lot of Sasek’s different books. It is a fabulous, albeit a little outdated, visual journey of different cities.

If you have the travel bug and are itching for a journey with your little go grab this book! It portrays many different countries and cities in gorgeous illustrations.  Yes the Empire State Building is now dwarfed by many other tall skyscrapers but that doesn’t discredit how marvelous it was!  Use this book to explore the different cities. If one particular place really grabs your little use it as a spring board and check out more books on that place! Look up pictures online. Find a cookbook with recipes from that place and cook something with your little. The ideas are endless!

This book will lead you and your little on adventure around the world that will open many doors to be creative!

I hope you all enjoy. Happy reading! Let us know where your travels take you!

This is huge news friends, HUGE! The children’s picture book  Last stop on Market Street by Matt de la Peña won this year. Now why is this such big news? Well it is the first time since they have been awarding the Newberry Medal that it has gone to a picture book! And well they started handing out this award in 1921!

The Newberry Medal Award is a children’s literature award given out by the Association for Library Service to Children and usually the award goes to a middle grades book. SO this is just an amazing thing for children’s picture books. A huge honor.

The other amazing thing about this book is it has also won the Caldecott Medal which is awarded to the most distinguished picture book in America.

So run, do not walk to your library or book store (or amazon!) and grab yourself a copy of this amazing book

I was debating between two stories to put up and this one won out. I will post the other one about cold weather (SNOW!) later this week but I am to cold to start thinking about snow right now so Templeton Gets his Wish won out! I am glad it did because I have been meaning to share this book for a while.

First and foremost the author/illustrator Greg Pizzoli is from my favorite city ever, Philadelphia and that right there is enough for me to buy a book but it is also a very sweet story with a great lesson in it.

Templeton is a little tiger(?) who is annoyed with his family nagging and bothering him so he wishes them away, and then he gets lonely, a little scared and maybe a little stinky that he wishes they would come back. I won’t ruin the whole thing for you but I bet you can guess what happens in the end!

The illustrations in the book use a very specific color palette making it very cohesive and fun to look at.

Instead of an activity here are a few questions you could ask your little while or after reading the book:

-What would you wish for?

-Would you be lonely without your family around?

-Should Templeton have used his brothers piggybank to buy his wish machine?

Hope you all enjoy the book and Happy Reading!

Happy New Year all! Here is to a new year and new books for all of us to enjoy!

So let’s start fresh and with a fun story about how I found a book. Growing up I loved this book called Ooh La La Max in Love it is a totally ridiculous book thats story line is all over the place. The illustrations and words join together in parts to create the story and it is seriously goofy.  I think what drew me in is the fact that it is basically nonsense and that each page has so much to look at!

The other day I needed to go to Barnes and Nobles to find a textbook (which they didn’t have ugh!) and of course a little bit of browsing ensued as well. As I was just about to leave empty handed I looked down at one of those middle display island things and on the bottom shelf this red book caught my eye. It looked very familiar yet, I don’t remember ever reading it. I picked it up and started to skim through the pages and instantly I knew it was written by the same author, Maira Kalman. It was undeniable, her style of writing and illustrations are so unique and interesting. So of course I didn’t leave empty handed.

The book, Beloved Dog, by Maira Kalman is a story about dogs, yet also a story about her life and her relationship with dogs – which at points is a little dramatic. The story is not your average cute, easy going children’s book story as it deals with her real life and the loss of her husband. I like this fact about the book because it does not sugar coat anything and children should not be frightened by these ideas so the more they are intertwined in stories they become less dramatic for them.

The entirety of the book is a collection of her stories, books, magazine articles etc about dogs to commemorate all the dogs she has come across, both real and characters, in her life. It gives you a little insight into all the other stories she has written.

After reading the book I looked it up on amazon, of course, and realized that she has written a ton of books and now I need to read them all. So that is what I will be doing for the next few weeks, trying to find the books in the library and consume them all!

Here is to happy reading in 2016!