Meet the Neighbors! Five Busy Beavers by Stella Grosso

Building a beaver dam calls for all hands on deck.

But when one beaver sneaks away with a muskrat to play, his hard-working brothers, the remaining four, now have to do more!

But as the remaining four brothers "beaver on," chewing down trees to construct their lodge and dam, a lazy heron shows up to persuade one more of the brothers to run away to play!

That loss leaves the three all bereft, each one feeling sorry for himself. And soon some frolicsome frogs lead one more beaver in the bog to abandon his log. More playmates turn up, to lead the remaining brothers to be done for the day. as three frolicsome frogs and and a tempting turtle lead two more away to play!

Only one beaver is left to do the job of building their dam made of logs.

Depressed, the last beaver brother finally paddles off by the dim light of a firefly. The dam's not done, and he is alone.

But as he swims to shore in a lonely, sad slog, he sees something new going up in the bog!

It seems the muskrat, the heron, the turtle and a trio of frogs, by the light of the firefly, have pitched in to finish the lodge with elan!>

"Many hands make light work," says the old saw, and in the bog that proverb comes true, as the five busy beavers celebrate with water lily pie and new friends with whom to watch the winter go by, in Stella Grasso's rhyming adaptation of the story of The Ant and the Grasshopper, Five Busy Beavers (Scholastic/Skyhorse, 2018). Grosso also adds her "Author's Notes, with more about the beavers' new neighbors who share the area around their dam.

With a bit of nature lore, counting lessons, and jolly verse in a novel rhyme scheme in store, Grosso's jolly picture book, illustrated with elan by illustrator Christine Battuz, is a fine seasonal read-aloud for preschool and primary kids.

Opines School Library Journal, "This original take on a classic is recommended as a general purchase for a primary collection. Great for a number-themed storytime or a lap read!"

Who's That Brave Girl? Out Into The Big Wide Lake by by Paul Harbridge

THERE WAS A KNOCK AT A DOOR. KATE WASN'T SUPPOSED TO OPEN IT--EVEN THOUGH SHE WAS BIG NOW.

THE DOOR OPENED. A BIG WOMAN STOOD THERE! "GRANDMA!" CRIED KATE AND RAN TO THE DOOR.

Kate's dad says that Grandma wants her to come and stay with her for the summer, like her big sister has done already.

"BUT KATE...?"

"WHY NOT? GIVE HER A CHANCE." SAID GRANDMA.

So Kate finds herself on the train on the the way to Grandpa's and Grandma's store by the lake. It seems like a long way, and it feels strange without her mom and sister with her. But grandpa and his little dog Parbuckle meet them with his boat, and Grandma starts the motor on the boat and soon they arrive at their little store across the lake.

And the next morning, Grandpa invites Kate to help him deliver groceries to the people around the lake. He shows her how to start the motor and how to steer it left and right and in circles.

A NATURAL SAILOR! SAYS GRANDMA.

Grandpa and Kate deliver groceries to happy people around the lake until they come to one place with big rocks around the landing. A grim-faced man is sitting there on a rickety old dock.

"YOU'RE LATE!" SAID THE MAN.

HELLO WALTER," SAID GRANDPA.

With a frown Walter took the box of groceries.

"BRUISE ON THIS APPLE," SAID WALTER. "THAT GIRL MUST HAVE DROPPED IT."

"SHE DID NOT." SAID GRANDPA.

All summer Kate helped Grandpa deliver the groceries. She liked all the people on the lake--except Walter--and practiced steering the boat through the waves. But one morning as they are about to leave for their delivery route, Grandpa had a sudden bad pain in his chest and sat down fast. Grandma had to drive him to the doctor's office, leaving Kate alone. Kate waited for a long time, and then decided to deliver the groceries all by herself. Why not? She knew how by now. She set off and delivered the groceries without a problem. Finally, only Walter's box was left. Kate steered the boat carefully through the big rocks. Walter was waiting for her. He looked unhappy to see her.

WHERE IS YOUR GRANDFATHER?" HE ASKED GRUFFLY.

"SICK!" SAID KATE, POINTING TO HER CHEST.

Suddenly Walter stepped into the boat and ordered her to take him back to her grandparents' store.

Kate steered the boat carefully against the wind and waves, and when they arrived at their dock, the doctor was just telling Grandma that Grandpa would be all right after a few days of bed rest. And in Paul Harbridge's just published Out into the Big Wide Lake, Kate learned that cranky old Walter is Grandpa's brother and her own great-uncle. And Grandma was very proud of how well she had delivered the groceries and piloted the boat safely home. And why not?

Artist Josee' Bosaillon's illustrations extend the narrative and help older readers to discern than Kate is a Down's syndrome child, one who is lucky to have a family who gives her support in becoming self sufficient, capable of doing tasks on her own. Younger readers will just be glad that she got to steer and run the boat all by herself.

Booklist says, "A heartening Canadian picture book with an emotionally resonant ending.”

What Can You Do with An Idea? How This Book Was Made by Mac Barnett and Adam Rex

At first, this book wasn't a book.

It was an idea.

Most kids probably don't give a thought to how books come to be. It's like they've just always been there on shelves in libraries or book stores. But they have a story all their own.

They start with an idea in the mind of a writer--a piece of a story--it could be the middle, or the ending, or the beginning. It could be a mental image of a character, or an appealing event that makes other things happen. It is the author's job to come up with characters, plots, dialog, and a conclusion that satisfies the reader. Sometimes an artist is called on to help the reader visualize the characters and action.

But that's only the beginning of a book.

So... Mac Barnett, the hopeful author, writes a draft of his book.

I had a bunch of words on paper. The words were the first draft.

But a first draft is not a book.

Neither was the second draft. Or the third. Or the twelfth.

With the twentieth draft I was done. So I sent my words to my editor.

Is it a book then? NO. There's many a slip between cup and lip, and Barnett's last draft is not the last one after all. The editor suggests many changes in his draft. Author Barnett is not pleased.

"You're not the boss of me!" he says.

That line hadn't worked with Mac's dad either, but finally author and editor agree on the final draft. Is it a book yet?

NO. It needs an illustrator to make the ideas easy to understand, so artist Adam Rex is called upon to do some drawings. He gets to argue with the editor while Mac gets to forget about this book and work on another one for a while. At last the manuscript and illustrations are approved. Now the book is ready to be printed and bound.

Now, the fastest way would be to print the book nearby in New York or Philadelphia or maybe Miami.

But NO.

The book was printed in Malaysia.

Malaysia is half a world away from New York. All the freshly printed copies have to be loaded on an ocean-going freighter. There are tiger and pirate problems in between. Mac Barnett has time to grow a very long beard while he waits.

And in Mac Barnett's How This Book Was Made (Hyperion Books), the author admits that "a book is not real until it has a reader." Books have come a long way since a story was mostly a storyteller on one end of the log and a listener on the other, but at the heart of it all that's what happens, and what happens in the creation of a book is a story in itself. Barnett's humorous story of how that happens IS the story of this tour de force of a story-within-a-story. Publishers Weekly says,"Barnett and Rex concoct another self-referential story, this one about the process of bookmaking. As in their collaboration, Chloe and the Lion, Barnett and Rex star as writer and illustrator. With the help of an editor (“she is like a teacher, only she works in a skyscraper”), a tiger, pirates, and a cast of thousands (well, maybe dozens), the manuscript leaves Barnett’s desk, undergoes editing, and arrives at the printer in Malaysia....Rex's artwork features paper models and a painted globe in addition to the pencil-drawn figures, lending the work the three-dimensional texture of a puppet play."

Perfect for Book Week read-alouds for Book Week, this one covers a lot of territory, not all of it on the Road to Mandalay!

Heaven Can Wait! Bad Kitty Goes to the Vet by Nick Bruel

Bad Kitty is just not her feisty self.

KITTY LOOKS TERRIBLE. SHE LOOKS TIRED. SHE LOOKS UNHAPPY. SHE DOES NOT LOOK HEALTHY AT ALL.

AND WORST OF ALL. . . KITTY IS JUST NOT EATING HER FOOD.

When Bad Kitty says "Feh" and goes off her feed, it's time for a trip to the... (horrors) VET. Going to the vet is just below Getting A Bath on Kitty's NOT TO DO list.

But like the proverbial recipe for rabbit stew (first catch the rabbit), there is that little matter of capturing Kitty and confining her in the cat carrier! Her owner suits up in haz mat gear, but even that is not protective enough. There's nothing left for it but to toss Kitty's beloved toys in the carrier and stuff Puppy in with them. Kitty decides she's going in... and Puppy is coming out.

YIP! YIP! YIP!

Yep, Puppy sacrifices a little epidermis for the cause, but at last Kitty is caged and it's off to Dr. Katmeister, where he diagnoses her malady as a bad tooth which has to come out. Doc scruffs her into submission and administers a hypodermic of something that puts her in Kitty La La Land.

Kitty goes KERFLOP and she's out for the count. ... Maybe too far out...

COME ON, KITTY! JOURNEY THROUGH THE CAT DOOR FROM YOUR WORLD INTO THE NEXT!

STAND YE ON LINE, KITTY, FOR TODAY IS YOUR DAY OF JUDGMENT!

HELLO, KITTY. NOT THE MOST IMAGINATIVE NAME, BUT NEVER MIND.

IT LOOKS LIKE YOU NEVER MADE IT OUT OF THE VET'S OFFICE. SORRY TO HEAR THAT.

But when St. Pete pages through the Book of Cat Life, he finds Bad Kitty has a dismal history of mistreating Puppy! It looks like she has not earned an endless kitty buffet in Pussycat Paradise. Instead, it seems she's doomed to Puppydog Paradise, where she will be chased for eternity by drooling dogs. But the Archangel has mercy on Kitty's case.

SIGH. I GET IT, KITTY. THESE DOGS, THEY REALLY ARE A GROSS, ANNOYING BUNCH OF SLOBBERING NINCOMPOOPS!

There's one last chance. Her judge grants her a reprieve of twenty-four hours to do one selfless and kind deed for Puppy. Can Bad Kitty come through and earn her ticket to unlimited carpets to claw and endless quality cardboard boxes?

Not to worry, Bad Kitty fans, for our favorite bad cat is back to stay, in Nick Bruel's latest, Bad Kitty Goes to the Vet (Roaring Brook Press, 2016). As always, this author-illustrator is in top cartoon form portraying his wayward feline curmudgeon with both affection and comic elan. Bruel's brilliant beginning chapter books have that genius touch of sly humor and sophisticated satire of familiar tropes that make them irresistible page turners for young readers while giving grownups great guffaws as well.

My judgment? It's Bad Kitty FOREVER!

For more of Bad Kitty, read my reviews here.

Sam's Story: Library Mouse: A Friend's Tale by Daniel Kirk

Sam was a library mouse who lived in a little hole in the wall behind the children's reference books. Sam loved to read and he loved to write, too. Everyone loved his little books, but Sam was very shy, and no one at the library had ever met him.

Sam, the book-writing mouse first introduced in Daniel Kirk's Library Mouse, (reviewed here just in time for American Library Week on November 7, 2008) is back in his second adventure just in time for Children's Book Week. In this story a boy named Tom finds himself sadly without a partner in the library's Book Week project. Each team of two children are to collaborate, one writing the story and the other creating the illustrations, but the class doesn't come out even, and Tom is left without a friend to work with.

Although Mrs. F., the librarian, offers to partner with him, Tom has another idea which he hopes will work. A big fan of Sam's hand-crafted mini-mouse sagas, Tom's observant detective work leads him to believe that the library's mystery author must be the mouse who left his author's notebook and footprints on the circulation desk, and he soon discovers the entrance to Sam's hole under the reference shelf. Hopefully, Tom secretly slips his carefully written story, "The Shy One," into the opening in the hope that Sam will agree to be his collaborator.

Tom worries that Sam will be too fearful of revealing his identity to take on the job of teaming up with him on the book, but Sam, as always, rises to the creative challenge, and his clever but enigmatic illustrations keep his full identity a mystery.

"So tell us," said Mrs. F., "just who is this Sam who writes so many books? I just have to ask, 'Is it you?'"

"Oh, no," said Tom. "I just wrote the story. Sam is real, but he likes his privacy, so that's all I am going to say. A friend knows how to keep a secret."

Daniel Kirk's new Library Mouse: A Friend's Tale, with its equally engaging illustrations, is a story which emphasizes both the fun of making original stories and illustrations and the power of teamwork in creating literature. Kirk cleverly includes his tribute to many of the authors and illustrators who make children's literature what it is by placing popular books--Frindle, Little Bear, Amber Brown Is Not a Crayon, The Doll People, Goodnight, Moon, Henry and Mudge, and Click Clack Moo, Cows That Type, to name a few--in the background as the story develops, a device which kids will love to point out as they read.

Library Mouse: A Friend's Tale, is an appealing sequel and, like its predecessor, a really fun way to introduce a classroom unit on writing, illustrating, and book production in general. Sam the Library Mouse looks like he has a long career ahead of him--one of teamwork with young writers and artists.

Too Short to Make the Shot: Salt in His Shoes: Michael Jordan in Pursuit of a Dream by Deloris Jordan

In his playing days, at six foot six, Michael Jordan cast a very long shadow over the game of basketball, but few of his fans know that he was once too short to make his neighborhood team. His mom remembers, though, and Deloris Jordan, with the help of Michael's sister Roslyn, tells the true family story of a star who was once too short to make the shot in Salt in His Shoes.

When hazing by an taller, older kid sends Michael home with a case of basketball blues, he confesses to his mother that he is afraid he'll never grow into his dreams of being a great player. Mama Deloris tells him to put salt in his shoes, say his prayers, and give it time. After four months of patience, practice, and plenty of salt, Michael hasn't grown an inch and completely loses heart. This time Daddy steps in and reminds Michael that practice, determination, and giving his best is what will make him a winner.

Michael decides to give his dad's advice another shot and hurries off to watch the neighborhood team play at the park. With their game already in progress, an injury to a player gives Michael a chance to come in near the end of the game. Confronting the bully, Michael confidently fakes him off and scores the winning goal "right over the tall guy's head." Although he was to grow plenty of inches in his high school years, Jordan never was the tallest guy on the court, but following his parents' advice, he became the biggest star in basketball.

Deloris Jordan's text reads true, and Kadir Nelson's illustrations of Michael in despair and in action tell the story of one little boy's real growth spurt on the way to becoming a man.

Trickster Sister: Probuditi! by Chris Van Allsburg

In two-time Caldecott Award-winner Chris Van Allsburg's latest, Probuditi! Calvin and best friend Rodney celebrate his birthday with tickets to the matinee show of famous magician Lomax the Magnificent. Back home, Calvin and Rodney try to while away the hours until his favorite birthday dinner by making a hypnotism machine just like the one Lomax used to make a stylishly-turned-out lady strut and peck like a chicken. Luckily, Mama has to go out and leaves in Calvin's care the perfect subject, his tattletale little sister Trudy. "None of your tricks, understand?" Mama warns as she departs.

With a spiral drawn on cardboard and erector-set parts, the hypnotism machine seems to work like, well, magic. With her eyes fixed on the whirling spiral, Calvin suggests to Trudy that she is now a dog, and Trudy's antics as an energetic puppy don't disappoint the two amateur magicians. Trudy barks at squirrels, howls, laps water from a bowl, snaps up the boys' ice cream cone in three bites, and licks Calvin's face appreciatively.

Fun's fun, but when it's time for Mama to return and make the birthday cake, Calvin and Rodney can't quite remember the magic word (probuditi!) to bring Trudy out of her spell. Panicking, the boys drag Trudy across town in a wagon to get help from Lomax, only to see him driving away from the theatre. Finally, they resort to dumping a bucket of water over Trudy's head just as Mama drives up, finding a dripping, screaming girl and an obviously guilty Calvin in the driveway.

Banished to his room Calvin sadly realizes that there'll be no spaghetti with meatballs and chocolate cake for him. Little sister Trudy dutifully brings up his birthday dinner--a peanut butter sandwich and a dill pickle.

"I turned you into a dog." Calvin started chuckling. "Had you running around on your hand and knees, barking and drooling."

Trudy waited for her brother to stop laughing... "How come I don't remember?"

"'Cause that's how it works," Calvin told her. "If you did, that'd mean you weren't hypnotized."

"Oh," said Trudy. She watched her brother chew unhappily on his peanut butter sandwich. "The spaghetti was really good," she told him. "So was the cake."

Calvin just grunted.

"Know what else I liked?" Trudy asked. "That ice cream I had this afternoon. Chocolate chip's my favorite."

Van Allsburg's nostalgic sepia-toned illustrations give the book a vintage 1950's look, while his varied angles and clear breaks between "scenes" have the signature cinemagraphic look of his Jumanji and The Polar Express. Probuditi is a wonderful example of a modern "tricking the trickster" tale which will bring forth gasps of surprised laughter with its justly satisfying surprise ending.