Songs of the Book: I Am the Book, selected by Lee Bennett Hopkins

Who's rich?
The boy who has a book he hasn't read yet.
The girl with a tower by her bed....
Her life starts everywhere.

April is Poetry Month, and notable editor Lee Bennett Hopkins, the dean of children's poetry publishing, has selected thirteen modern poems which celebrate the adventure and fun of reading. Artist Diego Herrera gets in on the fun with bright acrylic illustratons which personify the familar form of book as a pirate ship, a whale's tail, a treasure chest of riches, as poets explore the reading experience from a child's point of view.

This book is the best! I woke up this morning to read it before I got dressed. This book is so cool! It's the first thing I grabbed after school.

The just-published I Am the Book (Holiday House, 2011) features familiar authors such as Jane Yolen, who's imagination vivifies the reading experience as "Words/Nudge each other/like bumper cars/at the fair"....while Kristine O'Donnell celebrates the quiet side when she says "If you have a book...this great new book to read/Who needs a window seat?" Bennett's appendix offers thumbnail biographies of each of his poets and his selections offer plenty of instructive examples of poetic language--alliteration, onomatopoeia, simile and metaphor--and all of them offer vivid word pictures to delight the mind in the way that only a book can.

This book is just right. I'm reading it by flashlight deep into the night.

Read Out Loud! Read to Tiger by S. J. Fore

I SAT DOWN ON THE COUCH AND OPENED MY BOOK. IT'S TIME TO READ.

BUT I CAN'T READ.

THERE'S A TIGER BEHIND MY COUCH. CHOMP, CHOMP, CHOMPING HIS BUBBLE GUM.

"HUH-UH, TIGER."

"OOOPS!" THE TIGER SAYS. "TIGER IS SORRY. TIGER WON'T CHOMP!"

The boy settles down happily to enjoy his book, but Tiger has a different agenda. "HI-YAA!" he yells, as he karate kicks around the sofa. "GRRRRRR!" he growls, as he pretends to be a bear in the boy's own costume. "CHOO-CHOOOOO! TOOOOOOT!" goes Tiger's noisy red train as it circles the couch. With each interruption, the boy admonishes his buddy, and Tiger apologizes profusely. " Tiger sorry!" But then....

CREAK CRACK! CREAK CRACK! CREAK CRACK! "AHHHHHHH!"

MY COUCH IS FLYING UP IN THE AIR BECAUSE THERE'S A TIGER UNDER IT.

TIIIIIGER! WHAT ARE YOU DOING? I AM TRYING TO READ!!!"

By this time, even the youngest listener knows what is going on here. Tiger obviously feels left out of the silent reading process and his attention-seeking behavior is his way of letting the boy know it. But when Tiger actually looks at the book and sees that it's about a tiger just like him, he cuddles up and waits expectantly for the boy to get the message of his body language. And the boy does....

FINALLY I CAN READ MY BOOK...TO TIGER.

As in his earlier book Tiger Can't Sleep, S. J. Fore's Read to Tiger (Viking, 2010) uses the comic style of illustrator R. W. Alley (slightly reminiscent of the the pair of friends in Calvin and Hobbes) to depict the relationship of boy and tiger, in which the boy plays the adult role to a rambunctious tiger who plays the impulsive preschooler with elan. Kids will appreciate the humor of the role reversal and chuckle along with this delightful sequel.

Blast Off for Reading: How Rocket Learned to Read by Tad Hills

Every fall evening, after chasing leaves, Rocket would lie in his favorite spot under his favorite tree. There he would sniff the neighborhood smells and settle in for a good nap.

But one day... a little yellow bird startled Rocket.

"Aha! My first student. Wonderful!" she sang.

The little bird sets up shop immediately, hangs out her shingle, and dismisses Rocket's protests that he can't read.

"Can't read? FANTASTIC!

Welcome to my class!"

Rocket is not so sure he wants to give up his carefree lifestyle (and his naps) so easily, but the yellow bird begins to read him stories, and Rocket lies down under the tree and just has to listen to a tale of a lost bone.

Eventually Rocket is intrigued and learns the "the wondrous, mighty, gorgeous alphabet, where it all begins," and soon begins to put together sounds and decode the words of stories for himself. His progress is phenomenal. But then, one chilly day, the yellow bird's banner is gone from his tree.

"See you in the glorious spring!" she sang.

"Don't forget words are built one letter at a time!

And Rocket doesn't forget. All through the snowy winter he puts his letters together. W-I-N-D and C-O-L-D, he spells, making new words for the weather for himself. And then one warm day there is a sign in his favorite tree, and Rocket reads it readily--and happily.

CLASS STARTS TOMORROW!

Tad Hills' newest, How Rocket Learned to Read (Schwartz & Wade, 2010) features the author-illustrator's sweet style of illustrations made famous in his beloved Duck and Goose series. For slightly older youngsters, just approaching reading readiness or learning to read, this one pairs beautifully with Louise Yates' new Dog Loves Books, reviewed here September 8, 2010.

Literature 'R' Us: We Are in a Book by Mo Willems

"PIGGIE!"

"YES, GERALD?"

"I THINK SOMEONE IS LOOKING AT US!"

Modern readers are used to interactive media. For a couple of decades, authors, illustrators, and publishers have experimented with ways to get readers to do something with their books besides turning their pages in order. Choose-you-own-ending books, pop-ups, dyecuts, flaps, gatefolds, moving parts, and text which moves or has to be viewed upside down or read backwards has appeared; illustrators and creative directors have devised clever designs that encourage youngsters to manipulate the book as they read it, building and unbuilding the book as the story (and pages) unfold. Computer storytelling software has embraced the concept and run with it, using links to open successive screens with sound effects to go along with the action. Readers have now become accustomed to doing something with words and images.

But Mo Willems has a fresh variation on the interactive reading experience. His brand-new We Are in a Book! (An Elephant and Piggie Book) (Hyperion, 2010) has its characters Elephant and Piggie interacting with the reader. As the book opens, Gerald the elephant has that eerie feeling that he's being watched. Always the proactive member of the duo, Piggie advances into the foreground and, with one eye squinted shut, peers off the page and into the reader's eyes, and quickly turns to tell Gerald what she has discovered.

"A READER. A READER IS READING US!

WE ARE IN A BOOK!"

Elephant and Piggie are totally cracked up to discover that they can make their reader say anything they choose just by putting it in their speech bubbles. The two buddies experiment with "Banana" and roll on the ground with glee when they hear the reader repeat it whenever they choose. Then Piggie asks Gerald an innocent but momentous question:

"DO YOU WANT A TURN BEFORE THE BOOK ENDS?"

"ENDS?"

Gerald the elephant is horrified, stricken with existential angst. Fearfully he asks Piggie when the book will end.

Piggie obligingly kneels down and turns up the bottom right corner of page 45 to peek at the last page and reports the bad news:

"57."

But in their inimitable style, Elephant and Piggie come up with a way to keep the book from really coming to an end--one in which readers will be all too glad to interact. In his latest in the wonderful prize-winning Elephant and Piggie beginning reader series, it seems Mo Willems is incapable of coming up with a book that is not strikingly fresh and inventive and imaginative and downright funny, and in this one he manages to top himself yet again.

Print-a-Phobia: I Don't Like to Read! by Nancy Carlson

Henry was now in first grade.

And he was learning lots of new things.

But there was one thing Henry did not like about first grade.

READING!

"Reading is boring!!" he said. "It's dumb!"

Henry has always enjoyed listening to stories at home and at school. But now it seems that everyone else in his class is reading for themselves. His best friend Tony even brags that he can read anything upside down! But to Henry even right side up the letters and words seem just a jumble.

"All the words and letters just don't make sense!" Henry cried.

"That's okay, Henry." said his teacher, Mr. McCarthy. "Everyone learns to read in their own way."

And with extra help at home and from Mr. McCarthy the letters begin to come together for Henry. "STOP," "PIZZA," and even the title of Carlson's own book I LIKE ME! begin to pop out at him. But it is not until Henry's babysitter stops in the middle of an exciting story to yak on the phone for what seems like forever that Henry picks up the book and discovers that he can actually finish the story for himself and his little brother Pete.

Recently reissued in a new paperback edition, notable author Nancy Carlson's I Don't Like to Read! (Puffin, 2009) takes her character through one of the educational bumps in the road which a substantial number of kids hit when they begin learning to read. Carlson's book reassures the frustrated emergent reader, lowers the pressure to read right away gently, and while not glossing over the extra work required, shows that anyone can become a reader.

Earlier Henry books in the series are Look Out Kindergarten, Here I Come (Picture Puffins), Henry's 100 Days of Kindergarten, and First Grade, Here I Come!