Duck--And Cover! Duck, Duck, Dinosaur: Snowy Surprise by Kellie George

It's winter!

Today the surprise is...    SNOW!

For Feather (a duck) and Flap (also a duck) and their brother--by another-mother--Spike (NOT a duck; more like a dinosaur actually), the first day of winter has brought them something they've never seen before.

It's white and it's slippery, and of course Spike LOVES it! (Spike loves everything.) It's cold and it's wet, and of course Feather and Flap hate it. Their little webbed feet are in danger of turning blue.

But Brother Spike is gonzo about snow!

Nothing will do but for Spike to urge his little feathered semi-siblings to join him in a frenzy of winter sports. Feather and Flap loyally shiver through rounds of snowball fights, shake through belly-flop sledding, and get goosebumps from ice skating on the frozen pond. If the ducklings had teeth, they would be chattering all through Spike's snowman-building challenge, too. Brrrrrrrr!

Feather and Flap are about to mount a hypothermia mutiny when they spot MAMA, bearing hot cocoa and what looks like a mountain of poofy, downy duck jackets, knitted caps with ear flaps, and woolly-lined snow boots made for chilly webbed feet. Suddenly the ducklings are all go-go for snow!

What a surprise!

Mama knows best when it comes to winter wear, in Kellie George's latest book in her quacky-quirky sort-of-sibling tales in her emergent reader series, Duck, Duck, Dinosaur: Snowy Surprise (My First I Can Read) (Harper, 2017).  In this new book about those off-beat brothers, a sudden snowfall shows the Mama knows best when it comes to bundling up for frosty play. Author George's breezy narrative is easy for new readers to sound out, and artist Oriol Vidal offers her quacky-wacky off-beat illustrations of these unlikely siblings as visual cues to the text. Share this new one with Kellie George's and Orio Vidal's first story of the unlikely family of ducklings and dinosaur, Duck, Duck, Dinosaur. (See review here.)

School Library Journal gives this new one a two wingtips up: "Lots of word repetition combined with a simple but enjoyable plot make this an essential purchase for most beginning-to-read collections."

Just Call Me Mama! Duck, Duck, Dinosaur by Kallie George

MAMA DUCK'S EGGS HADN'T HATCHED YET.

BUT ALREADY SHE FELT LIKE THE LUCKIEST DUCK IN THE POND.

Mama Duck is a doting mother. She admires the two white eggs and the one large, green, spotted one that she had found and diligently pushed up hill with her bill the day before. Everything is ready for the big event.

Crrrr--rack! The first white egg crazes and then cracks open and out comes a yellow duckling.

MAMA NAMES HER FEATHER!

And as siblings will do, Feather and Flap begin to show off and outdo the other.

"I AM BIG," SAID FEATHER.

I'M BIG, TOO! I'M BIG, TOO! COUNTERS FLAP.

Not to be topped, Feather ruffles up her feathers and stands tall on her tiptoes.

"BUT I AM BIGGER!" SHE SAID.

But before the two siblings can top each other further, there's another, mightier CRRR-AAACK!

The green egg splits massively and out comes a very large and very green baby dinosaur!

Mama Duck names him Spike and gives him a kiss on his spiny head and settles down to admire her sweet family.

But the ducklings are not done competing. When Feather and Flap try to outdo each other with their funny dives into the pond, Spike hits the water in a humongous belly buster and wins that round.

"FUNNY!" HE PROCLAIMS.

But when the new hatchees are all cold and wet from their watery exploits, Mama knows best! Stretching out as far as she can, she nestles all three under her warm, feathery wings.

"HAPPY!" SAYS SPIKE.

It's all in a mama's day in Kallie George's Duck, Duck, Dinosaur (HarperCollins, 2016). George's narration takes it step by step with plenty of repetition, making this one easy listening and easy reading for storytime or beginning emergent readers. Oriol Vidal adds the simple and vivid illustrations, making this a funny and happy spring duckling tale.

A Brother from Another Mother? Dino Duckling by Alison Murphy

EVEN AS AN EGG, DINO DUCKLING WAS DIFFERENT.

Mama Duckling struggles to balance on top of her big, strange, blue egg, sitting tall among her relatively small duck eggs. Incubation is a challenge.

And when her eggs crack, the little ones are cute yellow bundles of fluff, but the big egg hatches out as one indisputably Ugly Duckling. But Mama Duck loves them all, and although it's a stretch, manages to take all her babies under her wings.

"BIG AND WIDE,
SLEEK AND SLIM,
WE'RE A FAMILY,
AND WE ALL FIT IN!"

Mama Duck gets busy teaching her hatchlings all the things they need to know as they grow--swimming, catching fish, how to share with each other, and how to navigate by the stars. The three little ducklings take to it like, well, ducks to water. Dino Duckling? Not so much.

It doesn't come easy to Dino Duckling. It's one thing to believe being different is a good thing, but the other creatures in the pond don't always see it that way. His swimming style is mostly thrash and splash, and the swans take umbrage in having their feathers ruffled and their elegant glide interrupted. In the lovely little pond, Dino Duckling is the equivalent of the metaphoric bull in the china shop.

SOMETIMES BEING DIFFERENT WAS DIFFICULT.

And as the summer goes by and the ducklings lose their yellow fuzz and grow sleek feathers, Dino Duckling stays the same--only BIGGER. MUCH BIGGER!

And when autumn arrives and it's time for the ducks to fly south for the winter, Dino Duckling just can't get this migration thing off the ground. He's left alone, weeping in the willows by the river.

"DIFFERENCE DOES MATTER," HE THOUGHT SADLY.

But Mother Duck doesn't despair. Where there's a will, there's a way, and she comes up with a just ducky solution to send them all south in style, in Alison Murphy's Dino Duckling (Little, Brown and Company, 2018). Dealing with all kinds of differences in the family and in the wider world is an important matter, even for pre- and primary schoolers, and Murphy's sweet and funny story spells out her premise with bouncy rhymes and with visual humor in her gentle illustrations of a family determined to break the mold to make sure they leave no sibling behind. Says Kirkus Reviews, "Reassurance for the Dino Duckling in every family!"

And if you need a pair to share, try Kallie George's Duck, Duck, Dinosaur and sequels. (See reviews here.)

Getting By With A Little Help From My Friends! We Will Rock Our Classmates Ryan T. Higgins

Penelope was the only T-Rex in her school. Sometimes that made her stand out a little. And sometimes Penelope's classmates didn't see her at all. They just saw a dinosaur.

Like when Penelope wants to play dentist, her playmates get to be the dentists and she gets to be the ... dinosaur in the dental chair.

And the kid dentists are pretty picky about her dental hygiene.

"Have you been flossing? William Omoto's backpack is stuck in your teeth!"

But when their teacher Mrs. Noodleman tells them it's time to sign up for the big Talent Show, Penelope knows just what she wants to do. She wants to rock her crowd with her guitar! It'll be great--if she can just screw up the courage to sign up under the gaze of their class pet, Walter the Ferocious Goldfish!

But when she does sign up, she overhears her classmates wondering aloud if a dinosaur could even play guitar! Onstage she freezes up and fails the audition. Maybe dinosaurs can't rock and roll.

That night her parents notice that she's only eaten 54 burgers. The next day she sits alone on the bench during recess. Dinosaurs probably can't play Duck! Duck! Goose! either. She slips into the classroom and erases her name off the sign-up sheet.

But her dad guesses what is wrong, and pulls the old family photo album and shows her photos of her uncle the figure skater and her mom the marathon runner, and her dad the Champion Hamburger Eater of the World. All the family were dinosaurs, but they did lots of other stuff, and so can she!

"You're kind and caring and creative!" Dad tells her.

And the next day, Penelope puts on her pink tutu and cowboy boots and puts her name back on the sign-up sheet. Soon she has a fabulous four playing with her band  and rocking the whole school down as Penelope and the Mustard Seeds. She doesn't even mind coming in second to Mabel Haysting and Her Tap-Dancing Pony. Mmmm! Ponies!

Kindergarten is very educational, in Ryan T. Higgins' latest, We Will Rock Our Classmates (Penelope Book 2) (Disney Hyperion Books, 2020), the sequel to his hysterical best-seller, We Don't Eat Our Classmates! (Penelope Book 1). It's not Your Mama's Kindergarten with Penelope the T-Rex in the story circle, and kids will love to adjust to Kindergarten along with Penelope and all her delish, er, delightful classmates to get to know.

Ryan T. Higgins is also the author of the best-selling hilarious series about a grumpy bear and his imprinted flock of goslings in the Mother Bruce (Mother Bruce, Book 1) (Mother Bruce Series (1)).

Picky, Picky, Picky!: Mr. Particular: The World's Choosiest Champion by Jason Kirschner

YOU WOULDN'T KNOW TO LOOK AT IT, BUT INSIDE THIS HOUSE LIVES THE GREATEST HERO OF OUR AGE.

He's got the red cape. He's got the big letter on the front of his blue shirt. He's got his own team that rivals the Justice League--the Super Duper Group, with Atomic Bear and Daring Duck.

Except... Mr. Particular has a few crotchets that cramp his super style.

HE LIKES THINGS THE WAY HE LIKES THEM.

He can't stand anything SQUISHY, or GREEN (no exceptions), or that SMELLS LIKE COCONUT. And he totally can't stand TUCKED-IN SHIRTS!

So when the villainous Kickin' Chicken attacks Daring Duck's sandcastle, Mr. Particular can't venture inside the squishy sandbox. He is also useless when Lizardbreath attacks, because his breath smells like coconut.

The Super Duper Group is forced to shun him for his persnicketiness, and Mr. Particular realizes his options for friends are pretty much limited.

MR. PARTICULAR RETURNED TO HIS FORTRESS OF FUSS TO THINK.

IF HE DIDN'T LEARN TO BE LESS PETTY, HE WOULD BE STUCK AT HOME PLAYING WITH SUPER POOPER, THE DEFENDER OF DIAPERS.

His baby brother's super powers are pretty much limited to maintaining perpetually loaded diapers, and the social prospects for a finicky superhero are pretty much limited at home.

Heroically, Mr. Particular resolves to overcome his super-selective predilections, in Jason Kirschner's Mr. Particular: The World’s Choosiest Champion! (Sterling Books, 2016).

Set in the panels of the action hero comic books of yore, Kirschner's artwork utilizes some of the familiar tropes of the superhero to good effect, while poking fun at picky-picky preschooler fussbudgetry with great good humor and a touch of sympathy for those sensitive to the inevitable icky aspects of life. Kirschner's endpapers are a masterful catalog of goofy gear from Super K Outfitters--Dino Skeleton-Actual Fake Dinosaur Bones (Not Dug Up in Deserts) and Box-o-Slime (Just Add Water). Older primary readers will appreciate the sly tongue-in-check satire of their nit-picky preschool siblings, and younger kids will giggle at the absurdity of a fear of the color green, not to mention the mere reference to stinky diapers. "A particularly appropriate tale just right for a choosy crowd," says Kirkus Reviews.

Cursed with Verse for Better or Worse: Science Verse by Jon Scieszka

After twisting the tail of the traditional tale in The True Story of the Three Little Pigs and The Frog Prince, Continued (Picture Puffin), and messing with our minds in Math Curse,Jon Scieszka turns his talents to the wide world of science with his parody of poesy, Science Verse (Golden Duck Awards. Picture Book (Awards).)

Zapped with the curse of "science verse," a formerly bored student finds respite in turning the tenets of science into parodies of famous poems and verses. Here's his black humor version of "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, as the class contemplates the science of the black hole:

TWINK

Twinkle-less, twinkle-less
Spot of black,
In the starry
Zodiac.
Suck in all
Matter and light,
Turning sunshine into night.

Twinkle-less, twinkle-less
LOST CONTROL.
Now we're trapped in
The black hole.

Then there's the spoof of human physiology, with apologies to Joyce Kilmer's "Trees, which begins

"I think I ain't never seen
A poem ugly as a spleen!"

And then there's this salute to the oft recycled "second grade, third grade, fourth grade" dinosaur unit, set to the stenorous tones of "The Raven:"

"It's still a mystery, scientists say,
Why the dinosaurs went away.
But I know why they couldn't stay,
And it wasn't meteors,
It was creatures--yes, those teachers,
Who did the work of fifty wars,
And bored to death...
The DINOSAURS."

For teaching across that curriculum gap between science and language arts, you can't beat Science Verse (Golden Duck Awards. Picture Book (Awards).) Or to borrow Scieszka's shtick...

For linking poetry and science,
For theories packed with wry nuance,
You could do a whole lot worse
Than John Scieszka's Science Verse.

May the Farce Be With You: The Adventures of Ook and Gluk, Kung Fu Cavemen from the Future by Dav. Pilkey

OOK AND GLUK LIVED WAY BACK I THE YEAR 5000,001 B.C. IN A VILLEGE CALLED CAVELAND, OHIO. OOK AND GLUK WERE BEST FRIENDS. THEY HAD BEEN HAVING AWESOME ADVENTURES TOGETHER EVEN SINCE THEY WERE CAVE BABIES.

ONE TIME WHEN THEY WERE 9, THEY ALMOST GOT ATE UP BY MOG-MOG, THE FEARSEST DINOSAUR IN CAVELAND.

AND ONCE THEY EVEN TRAVELED TO THE FUTURE, LEARNED KUNG-FU, AND SAVED THERE WHOLE VILLEGE FROM EVIL ROBOTS AND TIME-TRAVELING WEIRDOS.

BUT BEFORE WE CAN TELL YOU THAT STORY WE HAVE TO TELL YOU ... THIS STORY...

That master of preteen parody, Dav Pilkey, is back with a new laugh-out-loud tale, purportedly concocted by the bards of Jerome Horowitz Elementary School, those fourth-grade graphic novelists George Beard and Harold Hutchins, alleged creators of the runaway best-selling The Adventures of Captain Underpants series. Using the comic page frames and invented spelling which Pilkey developed to a high art, his latest story indeed has an epic sweep as it deftly spoofs the venerable science fiction time travel tale. It all begins with a prehistorical nemesis Big Cheif [sic] Goppernopper and his henchmen and his vendetta against our heroes, who have graffitied his beloved throne....

GOPPERNOPPER: "Gards! "

GARDS: "Here we are, Cheif Grasshopper! "

GOPPERNOPPER: "My names not Grasshopper, its Goppernopper!!! Jeez, How many times me got to tell you?"

GARDS: "We sorry, Chief Gobstopper! "

GOPPERNOPPER: "While you dummies were goofing off, my throne was defiled (pointing to graffiti 'Ook was here. Gluk too') "

GARDS: "Yeah, and sombody wrote on your chair, too. "

GOPPERNOPPER: "Me going to teach Ook and Glook a lesson once and for all! "

GARD 1: "Him's name not Glook, it 'Gluk.'"

GARD 2: "It rime with 'duck.'"

GOPPERNOPPER: "Me no care what hims name rime with! Lets just go arest them!"

(So off they went.)

Gard 1: "It also ryme with 'stuck'."

Gard 2: "And 'truck.'"

Goppernopper's search for the young vandals leads him to discover his modern alter ego and dastardly descendant Boss Goppernopper, from the year 2222, who, having invented the time-travel portal, is mining the past cave world for its natural resources and making a killing selling lumber, minerals, and pristine prehistoric water in the ecologically devastated future. Chief Goppernopper likes his great, great, etc. grandson's style and helps him recruit the Cavelanders as slave laborers. All this is too much for Ook and Gluk, who choose to go forward in time and stop this travesty. On the way they learn Kung-Fu wisdom from Master Wong: "He who conquers his own mind is the greatest warrior."

And it's no surprise that Ook and Gluk, with the help of their pet dino, Lily, who barfs at the most opportune times, elude the elder and younger Goppernoppers' evil intentions and, using the wisdom of Wong, even trick their wicked overloads into a fight in which the younger Goppernopper zaps his ancestor, which, in the best time-travel tradition, ensures his own non-existence in the present and expunges his despoiling of prehistory as well. Ook and Gluk return to the now restored prehistoric Eden of Caveland, Ohio, and all's well that ends well.

It's all glorious silliness, of course, but also dang clever spoofery and artwork, done up in Pilkey's best genre-bending style and bound to keep the middle elementary crowd in stitches throughout what looks to be an extended series. Dav Pilkey's The Adventures of Ook and Gluk, Kung-Fu Cavemen from the Future (Blue Sky/Scholastic, 2010) should, like it predecessor, banish the reluctant reader to an almost extinct species for as long as copies of this giggle fest are to be had anywhere in the world!

I Spy a Car Guy! Can You See What I See? Trucks and Cars

If your car-loving kid has already graduated from the I Spy Little Learning Box, a set of three I Spy Little Board Books, here's a natural follow-up for the preschool automobile buff. Walter Wicks' Can You See What I See? Trucks and Cars continues the fine photographic work that Wicks contributed to the wildly popular I Spy series authored for older readers by Jean Marzolo.

Trucks and Cars continues Wicks' Can You See What I See? series with a challenge to preschoolers to zoom in on each page and identify a specific truck ("a truck with a duck") from a page of cars and trucks of all colors and sizes. It's a fun way to sharpen observation skills and works with an adult reader or, after a few run-throughs, as a read-alone book.

Other books in this series which appeal to this age group are Can You See What I See? Dinosaurs, which in addition to teaching dinosaur names, doubles as a concept book teaching up and down, opposites, and size, and Can You See What I See? Seymour Makes New Friends, in which Seymour uses such art supplies as pipe cleaners, beads, craft sticks, and blocks, to make two bunnies on a see-saw. If preschoolers are eager to try out their own craft ideas, directions for at-home craft projects are appended.

For somewhat older kids, there's Can You See What I See? Once Upon a Time, in which rhyming text challenges the reader to find objects in tableaux from well-known fairy tales such as Cinderella or Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

All of these books are excellent as a way to foster focus and lengthen attention span in the preschool years, but the best reason to read them is that they are just so much fun--fun when new for the thrill of discovery and fun when they're familiar for the satisfaction of finding things right where they are supposed to be!