Calvin Can't Fly

Calvin Can't Fly: The Story of a Bookworm Birdie by Jennifer Berne
Illustrated by Keith Bendis
2010

     Calvin is a little black bird, a starling.  He has many brothers and sisters and over sixty thousand cousins...a very big family.  From the moment he was born, there was just something different about Calvin.  While his brothers, sisters and cousins were discovering worms, grass, dirt and water, Calvin discovered books.  While the rest of his family learned to chase beetles and bugs, Calvin was learning to read.  While they dreamed of insects, he dreamed of adventure stories. And while they were learning to fly, Calvin was in the library letting his mind soar and reading about science, history and legends.  His relatives make fun of him and call him "nerdy birdie", "geeky beaky" and "bookworm."
     The weather starts getting cold and the starlings begin migrating south. Since he missed all the flying lessons  while being in the library, Calvin can't fly. So his relatives tie him up to strings so they can carry him.  On their way south, they encounter a bad storm and Calvin uses all his learned in books about weather to direct them to take shelter.  He saves all their lives and they all celebrate together.  Calvin was so happy that amidst the celebration he starts flapping his wings and learns to fly.
     Calvin Can't Fly: The Story of a Bookworm Birdie is a wonderful tale to share with all book lovers.  While Calvin can't fly, his books take him places his wings never could.  This books should be in every single classroom library in the lower grades.  The illustrations are funny, beautiful and have plenty of images of classic themes that all young readers will connect with (pirates, dinosaurs, planets...basically, every single thing my four year old loves).  Great find!

Go to Bed, Monster!

Go to Bed, Monster! by Natasha Wing

Illustrated by Sylvie Kantorovitz

2007

     One night, Lucy "could not, would not, did not want to go to bed." She wanted to draw instead.  She grabbed her crayons and began drawing geometrical figures, and suddenly the shapes started moving on the paper and right before her eyes they turned into a monster.  The monster roared, but Lucy was not scared, she was just happy to have someone to play with!  Monster and Lucy played and played; they built castles, flew planes, ran and jumped all over her room...until Lucy was exhausted.  "Let's play sleeping lions." But Monster does not want to go to sleep now! He has a laundry list of reason why he can't go to sleep yet -and if you're a parent, you've heard them all- he's hungry, thirsty, cold,  needs to use the potty, scared, not sleepy, the room is too dark...Lucy does everything she can to appease him, and at the end, only when she reads him a bedtime story, does Monster fall asleep next to Lucy.

     Go to Bed, Monster! is a great bedtime story.  Young kids will see themselves in Lucy and Monster.  My son asked for a reread right away...and unfortunately for me, he already used a couple of Monster's excuses for staying out of bed tonight!  The oil pastels and oil paint illustrations by Kantorovitz are perfect: funny and sweet. The pastels give it a child-like quality that helps children connect with the story because they feel like one of "them" drew the illustrations.    

Mattland

Mattland by Hazel Hutchins and Gail Herbert
Illustrated by Dusan Petricic
2008

     "Matt had moved three times with his family and this was the worst place of all."  The ground was muddy and full of building scraps.  The doors to all the houses where closed and "there was no one he knew."  Matt was feeling frustrated, even angry.  As he picks up a stick he feels like breaking it, throwing it, like "hitting something with it. But the stick felt comfortable in his hand, and instead, Matt drew a line in mud."  It is this simple act of creation, of drawing a line in the mud, that becomes the turning point in Matt's new life.  "Rain had fallen that morning. The earth was full to overflowing and the line filled with water." As Matt witnesses the water moving through his line, he names it Snake River.  As the line connects to a puddle, he founds Turtle Lake. And just like that, little by little, we see Matt create a whole miniature landscape. Hutchins and Herbert do a fantastic job describing with detail, each of Matt's new creations. Petricic's illustration grow in detail and color as well, until we are presented with Mattland, full or roads, buildings, rivers, railroads, fences...
     Mattland is such a wonderful story, its language and illustration so poetic, that I'm having a difficult time not wanting to just quote whole passages.  Matt's isolation during his creative process is interrupted by an "outsider," a girl that "had not been invited" to be part of his creation.  She brings him a Popsicle stick to help him. Later on, "the outsider was back with four pine cones and an empty berry container." They don't exchange words, but soon she's back with enough finds that she needs both hands to hold them.  Matt finds a place for all those things.  Then, the rain begins to fall again and water starts to overtake the town they've created. "Matt and the outsider rushed to save things, but all was about to be lost, when suddenly...help arrived from unexpected place."  At this point, the illustrations help us see many pairs of hands pushing the ground and using found objects to create "dams, dikes, and deep canals" guiding the waters away.  "The rain stopped. The water calmed. The sky cleared. And shinning boats appeared on Turtle Lake."  The last image we see of Matt, is his smiling reflection on Turtle Lake surrounded by other kids' faces, his new friends.
     What a touching, memorable book!  I loved Mattland!

Bats at the Ballgame

Bats at the Ballgame by Brian Lies

Illustrated by Brian Lies

2010

     Hurry up! Come one -come all!

     We're off to watch the bats play ball!

     The bats are anxiously waiting for the sun to go down, so they can head out to watch the bat baseball game.  At the stadium, everybody is getting ready. The grounds crew is laying the bases and raking the mound with a fork.  The flying vendors shout through the rafters "Mothdogs! Get yer mothdogs here!"  The home team seems to always lose against this visitor squad, so the bats in the rafters are ready for an intense battle.  At the seven inning stretch, the home team is down by one and there's still hope. "We shake our feet and raise our wings. In voices high and strong, together, all the fans belt out the famous bat-ball song."

Ohh...hang me up in the rafters!

Hang me up by the toes!

Buy me some beenuts and Cricket Jack

     As the game reaches its final moments, the bats in the rafters reminisce about the glory days of the team and its famous old stars. They hope they can find a way to come back and beat their archenemies.  When the umpire calls out at home-plate the bat that was about to tie the game, cries of "Fire the ump! He's blind!" erupt across the stadium.  Thankfully, to the joy of the home crowd, their team wins on their last at bat.  They've done it, they've defeated their nemesis. "Can you believe?! Now nothing can erase the thrill that thunders in our hearts."  As the sun rises, it's time to fly back home.
     Bats at the Ballgame is a beautifully illustrated baseball tale that all sports fans will enjoy.  It seems fairly evident that the home team is supposed to be the Boston Red Sox and the opposing team is the New York Yankees.  Some of the images, when the grandbat  is remembering the old times, have a very close resemblance in pose and style to famous Red Sox and Yankee players of the past.  The story truly captures the ambiance and passion at the baseball stadiums.  Share this book with any baseball fan out there.

Banana!

Banana! by Ed Vere
2010

     Banana is the word. In this hilarious picture book Ed Vere uses basically two words, banana and please to tell a whole story. A monkey has a banana, another monkey wants it. Using exclamation marks and questions marks we get enough intonation to completely "hear" the dialogue between the two monkeys. It's a great read aloud that younger kids will truly enjoy. They will soon have memorized the book and will be asking you to listen to them reading it.

Piano Piano

Piano Piano by David Cali

Illustrated by Eric Heliot

Translated from Italian by Randi Rivers

2007

     Every day at 3:00 pm Marcolino sits down in front of the piano to practice his scales.  By 3:13 he's had enough and goes to watch cartoons on TV.  A minute later, his mom makes him go back to practice piano.  He hates playing the piano but he has to keep practicing because his mom wants him to become a grand pianist.  She used to play when she was younger but now she plays the guilt card instead, telling Marcolino that she didn't become a grand pianist herself because after he was born, she didn't have any time to practice. Marcolino would rather be anything else but a pianist: a grand magician, a grand artist, a grand pirate, a grand karate champion.  

     The only day Marcelino gets to do something that doesn't involve the piano keys in on Friday, when he's grandfather takes him to the space museum.  It is there that one day Marcelino tells his grandfather that he doesn't like playing the piano but has to because it is his fault that his mother never became a grand pianist.  When his grandfather has Marcelino and his mother over for dinner, he shares with them a box of pictures of his mom when she was young.  In those old photos she was always smiling, pretending to be a pirate or a pilot, performing magic and painting.  That is except for one photo where she looked very grumpy, the one where she is playing the piano! The secret is out.

      In Piano Piano, David is able to write a clever and entertaining story for kids that also holds a message for adults.  The illustrations remind me of European comic books -like Tintin - which brings back great memories.  They add a lot to the personalities of the charachters: the mom with the pointy nose and chest, Marcelino with the incomprehensible long bangs that stand up straight -another reminder of Tintin-, the grandfather with the pipe and rounded features.  Some interesting details are carried throughout the book, like the skirt his mom is wearing now, which is exactly like the one she had in the picture of her as an unhappy child  in front of a piano.  The skirt pattern is also repeated in the curtains from that childhood image.  

     Piano Piano invites us to take it easy. To relax and not place so much pressure on the kids.  Piano, means soft, easy, in music terms.  So that's it, piano, piano, easy, softly.

     

Lost and Found

Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers
Illustrated by Oliver Jeffers
2005

"Once there was a boy who found a penguin at his door." The penguin begins to follow the boy everywhere so the boy decide to help the penguin find its way home. He asked around but nobody seemed to know the penguin or where he had come from. He reads in a book that penguins come from the South Pole and he being his journey with the penguin to take him back home. During the long journey, the boy tells stories to keep the penguin entertained. When they finally arrived at the South Pole, they say their goodbyes and the penguin stays behind looking as sad as ever. As the boy sails away he realizes he's made a mistake and comes back looking for his friend.
Lost and Found is an endearing story about friendship. The penguin is lost and lonely. Once he finds the boy, they both find friendship and love. The watercolor illustrations are tender and beautiful. This a really lovely tale.



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