70-72. Three by Eric Carle

The Mixed-up Chameleon


The Very Hungry Caterpillar



The Foolish Tortoise

79. "What Moms Can't Do" by Douglas Wood

My sister-in-law received Douglas Wood's What Moms Can't Do as a baby shower gift, so I leafed through it after the party. It's a very cute, fun book with great illustrations by Doug Cushman. I think the story and pictures would appeal to most children, with humor that adults will also enjoy. Wood has also written What Dads Can't Do, and I'm now curious to read that as well.

63. "Zany Zoo" by William Wise

William Wise's Zany Zoo contains a variety of clever (and a few clunky and/or not-so-clever) rhymes. Illustrated by Lynn Munsinger--who has also partnered ably with Helen Lester, as I've noted in previous reviews--the book made me laugh out loud in some places. Students in the upper levels of elementary school might appreciate the puns in the poems, along with the vivid images.

58. "Purple Mountain Majesties" by Barbara Younger

Purple Mountain Majesties tells the story of Katharine Lee Bates, author of "America the Beautiful," who was inspired to write the song after a brief visit to the top of Pikes Peak. This, of course, makes for relevant reading here where I live, in view of the peak, but Bates was on a cross-country train trip that included a visit to the Chicago World's Fair and plenty of other sightseeing.

The book is pretty text-heavy for beginning readers, but the picture-book format doesn't allow for as much depth as a conventional early-reader biography, so I'm not sure who the target audience is (something we talk about a lot in intro composition courses). But that said, it's an interesting read about a woman who made a lasting contribution to the music and lore of the United States.

56. "Snakes: Long, Longer, Longest" by Jerry Pallotta and Van Wallach

Snakes: Long, Longer, Longest is a fun introduction to various kinds of snakes--longest, shortest, heaviest, lightest, fastest, slowest, and much more. The images seem to be collaged photos and are sort of trippy, for lack of a better word. The authors use "poisonous" and "venomous" interchangeably, which is a pet peeve of mine, but there's a lot of interesting information here for children interested in snakes.

55. "Don't Laugh at Me" by Steve Seskin and Allen Shamblin

Apparently the picture book Don't Laugh at Me is based on a folk song about how people are all different and all have shortcomings. It's a request to be treated as human, not to be laughed at or bullied. Glin Dibley's images are both colorful and heart-rending.

54. "The Other Dog" by Madeleine L'Engle

A poodle named Touche narrates this story about "The Other Dog" who comes to live with Touche and her people. The other dog is the baby daughter of L'Engle and her husband, Hugh Franklin. Touche describes her superiority to this other dog, Jo, and the grudging acceptance that eventually turns to love. Illustrated by Christine Davenier, this is a fun read for any dog lover!

53. "Tacky in Trouble" by Helen Lester

Helen Lester and gifted illustrator Lynn Munsinger chronicle the further adventures of Tacky the penguin in Tacky in Trouble. The loud, Hawaiian-shirt-wearing penguin gets bored with his iceberg and goes surfing to the tropics, where he encounters a grouchy elephant named Rocky. In his inimitable fashion, Tacky brightens up Rocky's life, and in the meantime, the other penguins realize how much they miss him.

50. "Sam and the Tigers" by Julius Lester

Julius Lester's Sam and the Tigers is a re-imagining of the story of Little Black Sambo, written and illustrated by black men who sought to reclaim the tale while removing the racist overtones. Sam, dressed in his fine clothes, encounters several tigers on the way to school. He convinces each tiger not to eat him by giving away his clothing, piece by piece. Eventually the tigers encounter each other, however, and their jealousy gives Sam the opportunity to outwit them and get his finery back.

Jerry Pinkney's illustrations add complexity and magic to the book. In fact, I wasn't sold on the story at first (and I didn't realize it was a re-telling of Sambo), but I was so hooked by the illustrations that I had to keep reading. The trees have faces, and Anansi even makes a cameo. Lester's Southern black voice, combined with Pinkney's delightful illustrations, are extremely effective, and I'm eager to check out their re-imaginings of some of the Uncle Remus stories.

49. "The Cat in the Hat Comes Back" by Dr. Seuss

Having confessed that I'm not a huge fan of the original Cat in the Hat, I was curious to read Dr. Seuss' The Cat in the Hat Comes Back and see if I liked it any better.

Actually, I liked it less. The rhymes seemed so awkward that I had to flip back to the cover to double-check that Seuss himself was the author. (I'm willing to concede that the rhymes weren't helped by the fact that I was listening to Five Finger Death Punch as I read, but I still think the text is unusually unwieldy, especially for Seuss.) My honest impression is that he wasn't particularly excited about writing this book but had to because of the popularity of the original. I could be wrong, of course. And I would imagine that anyone--child or adult--who enjoyed the first book would also like this one, in which the cat introduces a whole alphabet's worth of smaller cats in the quest to rid the house of a pink spot.

48. "Hooway for Wodney Wat" by Helen Lester

I'm a big fan of Helen Lester's picture books, which are brilliantly illustrated by Lynn Munsinger. Hooway for Wodney Wat is no exception--it's a cute, fun tale about a rat who's the brunt of his classmates' mockery because he can't pronounce his R's. But his liability turns to an asset when bossy, mean Camilla Capybara joins the class, and Wodney's chosen to be Simon in an afternoon game of "Simon Says."

46. "The Mysteries of Harris Burdick" by Chris Van Allsberg

In The Mysteries of Harris Burdick, Chris Van Allsberg presents illustrations, each with a title and one-sentence caption, created by a mysterious man named Harris Burdick. After submitting this sample portfolio to a publisher in 1954, Burdick vanished, never to be heard from again.

The images, captions, and titles are meant to inspire children to develop stories. A website features many of these stories and honors Peter Wenders, the now-deceased publisher who shared them with Van Allsberg.

Some of the illustrations are particularly intriguing and evocative. I might try writing stories myself based on a few of these at some point.

41. "Kashtanka" by Anton Chekhov

Awhile back, I found a hardcover picture book at Goodwill--my new favorite place to buy books--with a waif-like dog on the front cover. I try like anything to avoid books with sad-looking animals on the covers, but this one turned out to be written by Anton Chekhov. And since I'm obsessed with anything Russian and Gennady Spirin's illustrations tugged at my heartstrings, I flipped through the pages to make sure nothing bad happened to the dog before I decided to buy the book.

Anyway, this tale is called Kashtanka. It's the story of a dog who loses track of her master, a cabinetmaker, starts to fall asleep in the snow, and is rescued by a fat stranger who also has a goose, a pig, and a cat. It turns out that he trains animals for the circus, where he works as a clown. He trains Kashtanka to join the act, but on her first night, she hears her name from high in the stands. The cabinetmaker and his son have come to the circus and immediately recognize her. The crowd helps a jubilant Kashtanka reach her family, and she goes home with them, happy and already forgetting the disruption in her life.

It's a sweet and whimsical tale. When I checked on Amazon for the link just now, I discovered that this edition--published in 1995--is apparently out of print. Ergo, I've used the cover of the French version just to show the illustration that made me take notice of the book. And now that I know it's out of print, I'm even more glad to have snagged a copy.

32. "Llama Llama Red Pajama" by Anna Dewdney

I overheard my sister-in-law reading Llama Llama Red Pajama to my not-quite-2-year-old nephew, so I snagged the book later and read it myself. It's a cute, sweet story about Llama Llama Red Pajama, who panics after his mama llama tucks him into bed and doesn't immediately answer his request for a glass of water. He imagines all kinds of horrifying reasons for his mama's delay in returning to him, but when she finally comes, she gives him a comforting kiss and reassures him that she's never far away. And enough of this "llama drama"! 

27. "But No Elephants" by Jerry Smath

I drove to Denver this afternoon to see friends, one of whom, Lisa, gave me a children's book to read so I wouldn't miss my book-per-day goal. (She also sent several grownup novels home with me to round out my reading list.) I'd never heard of But No Elephantsby Jerry Smath before, but it turned out to be a fun read with cute illustrations.

Grandma Tildy lives alone, and she's willing to take almost any pet from the pet man--"but no elephants!" However, when the pet man departs from town before winter, he leaves his last pet, an elephant, right outside Grandma Tildy's house. And then the snow starts to fall, and she can hear the elephant crying...which is sad. But because this is a children's book, it has a whimsical and very happy resolution. And even we adults need whimsical and very happy resolutions at times. At least this adult does.

(I should confess here that I have a lifelong fondness for picture books involving elephants, dating back to a Little Golden Book called Elephant on Wheels, which I made my father reread so many times that he can still recite most of it from memory.)